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MENTAL MEDICINE 
BY OLIVER HUCKEL, S. T. D. 



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MENTAL MEDICINE 

Some practical suggestions from a spiritual 

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MENTAL MEDICINE 



SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 
FROM A SPIRITUAL STANDPOINT 



Five Conferences with Students at the Johns 
Hopkins Medical School, by 

OLIVER HUCKEL, S. T. D. 

Graduate, University of Pennsylvania 

Student at Oxford and Berlin Universities 

Pastor, Associate Congregational Church, Baltimore 



With an Introduction by 

LE WELLY S F. BARKER, M. D. 

Professor of Medicine in Johns Hopkins University 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1909, 

By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

Published, June, 1909 



JUN 23 W9 



lurutA 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

'Author's Foreword . . . .- . . xi 

Introduction by Lewellys F. Barker, 
M. D. . . ....... xxix 



FIRST CONFERENCE 

Mental and Spiritual Factors in the 
Problems of Health 

/. The New Outlook for Health . . 3 

The days of specialists and of the whole 
man. The increase of nervous diseases. 
Psychotherapy and its rational use. 
How ministers may co-operate. Some 
dangers of the movement. New em- 
phasis on laws of 1 health as God's laws. 
Pain is a danger signal. People perish 
for lack of knowledge of fundamental 
principles of rational living. Essential t 
principles of religion in harmony with 
the latest findings of science. The la- 
tent forces. The re-education in normal 
life. The redemption of both bodies 
and souls. 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

//. The Unique Powers of Mind . . 28 

Instances which show the marvelous 
influence. The power of mind used in 
the various irregular curative move- 
ments. The secret of the psychic cure 
of disease. The healing power of 
Nature. Mind force over bodily func- 
tions. The power of mental suggestion. 
The power of mind when energized and 
reinforced by divine power. 

///. The Spiritual Mastery of the Body 44 

The dauntless and invincible spirit. 
Where God gave dominion. The 
eternal over the transitory. The moral 
influence over bodily functions. The 
method of Jesus. The thought-life is 
real. Thoughts are deeds. The duty 
and responsibility of right mental habits. 
Physical as well as spiritual importance. 
The duty of obedience to God's laws, 
spiritual, mental and physical. 



SECOND CONFERENCE 

The Therapeutic Value of Faith and 

Prayer 

/. Faith as a Vital Force .... 59 

Faith is more than attitude or belief. 
It becomes a vital force. Faith a prin- 
ciple in daily life. Its value in science. 
Its fundamental position in religion. Its 
constant use in therapeutic work. Its 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

use in the healing _ ministry of Jesus. 
In the various healing cults. In every 
physician's practice. The essence of 
faith not superstition or theological 
creed, but reverence, willingness, obedi- 
ence. How to inspire faith for healing 
value. 

77. The Healing Value of Prayer . . J2 

Prayer often a perplexity. Yet is the 
supreme experience of life. All's law, 
but all's love. The greatest power of 
prayer is not its answer in the material 
realm, but its influence in bringing har- 
mony with God's laws. Prayer in its 
lower aspects not a contravention of 
law, but a ^ larger knowledge of law. 
Prayer in its higher meaning of the 
greatest therapeutic and spiritual value. 
It opens new channels for new life. 

THIRD CONFERENCE 
Possibilities in the Control of Subcon- 
sciousness 

/. Glimpses of the Subconscious Self . 89 

Evidences ^ of the subconscious self. 
Psychologists differ in definition. Con- 
venient nomenclature. Dr. O. W c 
Holmes' view.^ Theory of its functions. 
Some probabilities about the uncon- 
scious self. Its normality. It does not 
reason, but obeys. It seems to be more 
elemental. It has great reserves. 
Some think it is more closely allied to 
the divine. The relation of the con- 
scious to the unconscious. 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

//. The Training of the Hidden 

Energies 106 

The possibility of training the subcon- 
scious self. The value of mental sug- 
gestion. Its uses with the conscious 
self. Its possible uses in normal self. 
Its power of impression and direction 
in the subconscious self. Hypnotic 
suggestion only for extreme cases and 
under careful medical supervision. 
Ideal mental suggestion. Creative af- 
firmities. Educational or rational psy- 
chotherapy. Control by good habits. 
The control by a determined will. Con- 
centration and repetition. The unused 
energies of a man. The work that reli- 
gion can do in the training of the inner 
life. 



FOURTH CONFERENCE 

Some Elements in Morbid Moods 

/. The Casting Out of Fear . . . 125 

What are the morbid moods? Many 
forms. Ancient maladies. The causes 
are various — physical, including possibly 
organic trouble, or climacteric derange- 
ment, or nervous exhaustion or wrong 
mental habits. The cure must be special 
for every case. Medical if needed. 
Both medical and mental when neces- 
sary. The bondage of fear. The vari- 
ous kinds of fear. The cure by a new 
mental outlook. 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

77. The Control of the Imagination . 137 

The sins and sanctities of the imagina- 
tion. The perils of children and youth. 
Evil books and companions. Imagina- 
tion can be controlled. Three steps. 1. 
Purification. How to cleanse the foun- 
tain. 2. Preoccupation. How to fill the 
life with good. 3. Protection. The 
need of eternal vigilance. Imagination 
an imperial and divine gift. 

777. The Cause and Cure of the Worry- 
Habit 146 

The disease of the thoughtful. Its 
forms. The peril of the chronic habit. 
The causes, physical, temperamental, 
mental, spiritual. The worry-habit can be 
overcome, although often difficult. The 
most effective cure is by substitution. 
Explanation in detail. Other helps — 
physical hygiene ; take up a fad ; pin 
your worries down to definite facts; 
learn to see the humor of the situation; 
be philosophical; live only one day at 
a time. The spiritual treatment and 
stimulus needed. 

FIFTH CONFERENCE 

The Higher Factors in the Re-education 
of the Nerves 

/. The Gospel of Relaxation . . . 169 

The heroic side of the passive virtues. 
There is something better than resisting. 
Getting rid of the tenseness and strain 
of life. The physical value of passivity, 
as a therapeutic condition. The phi- 



x CONTENTS 



losophy of the rest-cure. The spiritual 
worth. Surrender and realization. The 
oositive side. The e^reat affirmations. 



PAGE 



worm, surrender ana realization, u 
positive side. The great affirmations. 

//. Work as a Factor in Health . . 178 

A divine law of being. ^ Necessary for 
the preservation of vigorous health. 
The nobility of work. Reasonable 
work. How to work without fatigue. 
The day of new vision. Work is often 
a means of restoring health. The men- 
tal atmosphere in which we work. 
Knowing when to stop. The occupa- 
tion-cure for patients. Work the great- 
est blessing. The right mental and 
spiritual outlook in work. The im- 
mediate and ultimate purpose of work. 

///. The Inspiration of the Mental Out- 
look . . . . 191 

The greatest field for^ mental medicine 
is to cope with physical treatment in 
the restoration of the nerves to equilib- 
rium, right adjustment, and normal ac- 
tion. The value of the mental facts of 
cheerfulness, courage and persistent 
optimism. The cultivation of sunshine. 
The atmosphere of inspiration. Orien- 
tal and Western methods. The foun- 
tain of youth. The value of the spirit- 
ual factors of a trustful serenity of 
spirit, and the old but effective method 
of the practice of the presence of God. 

Best Books for Further Reading . . 217 

1. On the General Subject. 

2. On the Medical Aspect. 

3. On the Psychological Aspects. 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

Vfl^l^ ^HE introduction which Dr. 
M £*\ Lewellys F. Barker of Johns 
Ml 1 Hopkins University has kindly 

^^^^^ written for this volume shows 
most clearly the scope and pur- 
pose of these addresses. I feel that his 
words may also do a great deal towards 
straightening out the tangled ideas of many 
regarding the relations of the differing pro- 
fessions of the physician and the clergyman 
in their mutual ministry to the " sick mind." 

In addition to Dr. Barker's words, it 
seems fitting that a few words should be said 
from the standpoint of my own profession. 

These present days are witnessing numer- 
ous attempts at closer co-operation between 
the physician and the minister in the processes 
of health and healing. There are also some 
endeavors to readjust the church as a uni- 
versal hospital and clinic for the cure of cer- 
tain forms of disease, while the clergy, in 
some instances are giving the bulk of their 
ministry to the art of healing by psycho- 
xi 



xii AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

therapeutic methods, including much of 
hypnotism. 

We believe that the church will be wise in 
making haste slowly in the attempt at heal- 
ing. There is real danger of giving itself, 
not to wise and rational psychotherapy, but 
to the extravagances of psychotherapeutic 
theories. It would be a distinct calamity if 
every church should be exploiting itself as a 
nervine hospital. There are also grave ethical 
dangers in the use of hypnotism. 

Is there not possible, however, a wiser co- 
operation, and a safe and sane method ? The 
addresses in this volume, in their spirit and 
teaching, endeavor to indicate what many of 
us believe to be the better way. They give 
a series of teaching along the lines of right 
thinking and right living, which ought to 
help make better conditions for health and 
healing. They eschew hypnotism. They 
aim to suggest a method of co-operation which 
can be readily used by all the churches, even 
if they do not have in their pulpit a trained 
psychologist, or in their equipment the neces- 
sary helpers for a church clinic. For most 
churches, this limited co-operation is all that 
is needed or advisable. 

These addresses aim to incorporate the 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xiii 

fundamental teachings of mental science as 
used in modern psychotherapy. They do not 
exaggerate mental and spiritual factors. 
They do not make rash promises. They do 
not minimize the regular therapeutic methods, 
approved by long experience and fruitful re- 
sults. They do not, for a moment, take the 
place of the physician. Rather, they aim to 
co-operate cordially and to make the phy- 
sician's work more effective by supplement- 
ing it with certain mental and spiritual fac- 
tors, which religious teaching can often most 
helpfully supply. 

The writer feels that nothing final is said 
in these lectures. They are only tentative. 
Others will yet do fuller and better work. 
But up to the present, perhaps there is no 
book which fills just this field or meets this 
need, which is that of practical suggestion 
and present service along vital lines. 

These addresses were given during Febru- 
ary and March, 1909, in conference with stu- 
dents at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, 
under the auspices of the Medical Y. M. C. 
A., as an illustration of the new suggestive 
thought of the physical aspects of spiritual 
work, and also as a concrete exposition of 
how a minister's teaching might co-ordinate 



xiv AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

with and supplement the work of the physi- 
cian. I have been surprised and gratified at 
the cordial reception these addresses have al- 
ready received, and the large usefulness they 
have demonstrated, as witnessed by the spoken 
testimonies and many letters. I hope that 
in their printed form they may be equally 
serviceable. 

These addresses, being given under the 
auspices of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation of the Medical School of the Uni- 
versity, have allowed me to emphasize the 
spiritual aspect of these matters much more 
strongly than I would otherwise have taken 
the liberty of doing. Under these auspices 
I felt that my work was not merely to dis- 
cuss theories, but in a definite sense to help 
create a spiritual atmosphere, leading to some 
practical results, even among the students 
themselves. If these addresses, therefore, 
shall have any value to the public, it ought 
to be along these lines. They are not medi- 
cal lectures ; they are vital discussions for 
immediate inspiration and helpfulness. 

Some needed notes of warning are being 
sounded in these days against the interest 
of ministers in psychotherapy, and some ad- 
mirable discriminations are being emphasized ; 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xv 

yet I feel that many of us are unnecessarily 
alarmed at the emergence of the new epoch 
in the church, and I feel confident that some 
in their thinking have not done justice to the 
new point of view underlying the present 
movement. 

The unique possibilities of psychotherapy 
in its various features are being appreciated 
at our great medical center in Baltimore, the 
Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Phipps has 
just given more than a million dollars for a 
new department and equipment to study men- 
tal diseases, especially in the lines of psy- 
chiatry, and many of the leading! profes- 
sors, such as Dr. William H. Welch, Dr. 
Lewellys F. Barker, Dr. W. S. Thayer, and 
Dr. Henry M. Hurd, are physicians of most 
hospitable spirit. It was the sympathy and 
encouragement of such physicians, especially 
Dr. Barker and Dr. Hurd, that led me to ac- 
cept the invitation of the students to deliver 
the course of addresses given in this volume. 

It is a significant sign of the times that a 
minister should be invited to do this work, 
but it was accepted as an opportunity for 
talking over a most vital matter with a choice 
section of a coming generation of physicians, 
and feeling the pulse of the future. As the 



xvi AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

genial physician, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
loved to talk theology with young theologues, 
so a modern minister may find prophecy and 
potency in talking vital medicine with the 
coming neurologists of this wonderful un- 
folding century. 

The new movement of co-operation be- 
tween physicians and ministers does not mean 
a practice of medicine by the clergyman, 
as some contend, but a teaching and practic- 
ing of the fundamental principles of mental 
control and rational living. It does not mean 
abandoning the ministerial profession, but 
a new infusion of interest in the vital and 
practical work of the ministry, and a new 
realization of the wonderful intimacies of 
spiritual and physical work. 

The real spirit of the new movement is 
not an attempt to turn clergymen into phy- 
sicians through a magic use of psychic 
forces, but it is to make ministers more in- 
telligent and efficient in their God-given 
ministry of teaching and consolation and also 
to make them more wisely co-operative with 
the physicians who share in the care of the 
sick of their parishes. 

We all recognize the perils and the limita- 
tions of the movement toward co-operation 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xvii 

between physicians and ministers. There are 
the dangers, as Dr. Cabot puts it, " of seeking 
help in the wrong place." But co-operation 
will usually remedy this. There is danger 
that the " movement may spread too far and 
too fast." There is, however, too much hard 
work in it, for it to go very fast. That 
danger may be taken for granted as righting 
itself in the long run. There is the danger 
of " inadequate training." This is true. But 
it is as true for the physicians as the clergy- 
men. Many physicians are sadly inadequate 
for their work, and especially for the larger 
work of psychotherapy. But the work itself 
sifts out its workers. More than study and 
training are needed to be effective. It needs 
fine aptitudes in an understanding both of 
psychotherapy and of human nature. The 
movement will gradually correct any extrava- 
gancies and find its equilibrium. 

The Emmanuel Movement has been an in- 
teresting development. It has done great 
good. It has called attention to some for- 
gotten facts. But it is a question whether 
its continuance or further extension on its 
present lines would be w 7 ise. For a full dis- 
cussion of its work from a psychologist's 
standpoint, and especially its perils from the 



xviii AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

employment of hypnotism, the reader is re- 
ferred to a series of three articles in three 
recent issues of The Psychological Clinic by 
the editor, Dr. Lightner Witmer. These 
articles are a careful examination, analysis 
and criticism of the movement, and deserve 
thoughtful consideration. They commend 
the social work and the religious appeal of 
the work, but show its very grave dangers. 
These present addresses aim to avoid these 
dangers by excluding the use of hypno- 
tism, and by showing the limitations of the 
work, as well as by emphasizing the practical 
side of the work within these limited lines. 

It might be a serious calamity to the 
churches to endeavor to repeat in other par- 
ishes that unique experience of the Emmanuel 
Movement. But I do know from experi- 
ence how helpfully and practically the essen- 
tial principles of rational psychotherapy can 
be used in a parish, and without church 
clinics and without the least attempt at 
hypnotic therapeutics, with all the teaching in 
the open, and all the methods, the tested ex- 
perience of rational living. 

The perils are real, but the practical pos- 
sibilities are greater. For what we must 
bear in mind, in general, is, that the new 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xix 

movement emphasizes the fact that we can 
learn to control our feelings and functions. 
" A large proportion of nervous patients/' 
Dr. Lewellys F. Barker said recently, in one 
of his addresses, " are victims of unhealthy 
emotional states. Instead of being invigor- 
ated by healthy feelings, they are exhausted 
by depression, irritability, worry, fear." 
They may " learn how to school their emo- 
tions," is his hopeful verdict, and " how to 
cast worry and anger out of their lives. One 
of the best means of doing this is by encourag- 
ing the cultivation in a positive way of the 
elevating and strengthening emotions and 
sentiments — appreciation, faith, hope, love 
and joy. All sham emotions, accom- 
panied by tension and strain, should be ban- 
ished, and the patient should be taught not to 
cherish emotion for its own sake, but always 
to endeavor to give expression to it by the 
performance of an act with which it ac- 
cords." 

We must remember that the new co-opera- 
tion really began with the physicians. Dr. 
Weir Mitchell was the inspiration. A great 
debt is due also to Dr. Paul DuBois, to Dr. 
Morton Prince, Dr. J. J. Putman, and many 
others for their splendid services in the sane 



xx AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

and scientific progress of the movement and 
in showing its limitations. For the future, 
we believe the largest responsibility and de- 
velopment of the work must be in the phy- 
sician's hands, the minister's part, when re- 
quired, being merely co-operative, but never- 
theless important. 

Some have contended that the primary 
duty of the church is to the well. The 
Master did not so discriminate. He acted 
as if the primary duty were to all the needy, 
both sick and well. Frequently his first 
ministrations were to the sick. The clergyman 
has duties to the well, but also special du- 
ties to his sick, a large number in every 
parish, taking a great deal of his time and 
strength. He must visit them nearly as 
often as the doctor, — the duty is enjoined 
both by the commands of religion and of 
humanity. How can he most effectively use 
his visits and opportunities of helping? 
Surely not in simply talking religion and by 
praying, but by talking religion and by 
prayer to some definite purpose; not against 
physiology and psychology, but in harmony 
with these; not at cross purposes with 
the medical man in attendance, but in active 
and complete co-operation with him. There 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xxi 

ought to be a real understanding in this 
work between the physician and the min- 
ister. 

One critic advises the minister to let 
religiously alone this work for which he is 
unfit. Yes, but in some cases he may be 
exactly the very one to co-operate with a phy- 
sician who feels himself unfit for the spir- 
itual factors perchance involved in the case. 
The pastor can often consult with the phy- 
sician, even in the diagnosis, and sometimes 
throw great light on the case by giving cer- 
tain mental and spiritual factors involved. 

Besides, a minister is often the very one 
who can best give a needed stimulus toward 
faith, right directions for prayer and a re- 
education in mental and spiritual outlook. 
As Dr. Richard Cabot, a wise and conserva- 
tive Boston physician, says : " Education is 
indeed the most potent of all our weapons in 
the attack upon nervous disorders. But it 
is not academic nor intellectual acumen that 
we wish to produce in this type of sufferer, 
but rather that moral and spiritual awaken- 
ing which gives him a greater and better 
reason, a purer and intenser motive, for all 
that he does. Because I believe, then, that 
all explanation, all encouragement, all edu- 



xxii AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

cation, which ignores religion is for that rea- 
son slip-shod and slovenly, I believe that pa- 
tients whose physical ills can be mitigated 
through explanation, encouragement and edu- 
cation, need the help of some one to whom 
religion is a working reality." 

Religion as a working reality has therefore 
its place in the new therapeutics, and I 
feel that we must recognize that something 
of permanent value has come, — a new out- 
look for the minister in his pulpit and pas- 
toral work, and a new possibility of in- 
telligent co-operation between the minis- 
ter and physician. The minister in this 
is not practicing medicine. He is merely 
doing his part toward the health, wholesome- 
ness and holiness of the community. I con- 
tend that too much conservatism in this mat- 
ter is as perilous as an unwise radicalism. 
We need a large hospitality to new truth and 
new methods. We need balance, but also 
faith in the fuller work of the ministry. It 
is most important in all this new develop- 
ment of possibilities to keep a level head, 
but keeping a level head does not necessarily 
mean utterly ignoring providential leadings 
and leaving religiously alone great fields of 
moral usefulness and spiritual regeneration 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xxiii 

that are involved in these new possibilities 
of mental control and will-power. 

I firmly believe that a study of psy- 
chotherapy is as important to the modern 
minister as a study of psychology or sociology. 
It is really a new adjunct in practical the- 
ology. For a fuller exposition of this gen- 
eral point of view, the reader is referred 
to a very sensible and suggestive series of 
articles on " Psychotherapy and the Church " 
which recently appeared in The Congrega- 
tionalist of Boston, by Rev. Chauncey J. 
Hawkins, which shows, from a clerical stand- 
point and after a careful study of European 
clinics, how the psychotherapeutic work in 
general is best done without connection with 
religious institutions and yet at the same 
time how co-operation may be most helpful 
and how certain phases of the work may en- 
rich and enlarge pastoral service. 

Allow me, in a few words, to re- 
capitulate the purpose of this volume. 
Whatever is worth while in the Christian 
Science movement, but without its extrava- 
gancies and inconsistencies, we want to show 
in its right relations in these addresses. 
Whatever is best and wisest in the Emman- 
uel Movement, but without its clinics and 



xxiv AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

hypnotic treatments, we want clearly and 
strongly to emphasize. 

We aim to set forth the essentials of a 
wise co-operation between physicians and 
ministers in their mutual care of the sick; 
but just as clearly we aim to show the meth- 
ods of self-treatment along these efficacious 
lines of mental and spiritual control. In a 
word, we aim at something of permanent 
value, independent of all passing movements, 
in the themes that we shall consider. 

These addresses are for the well as em- 
phatically as for the sick. They aim at pre- 
vention as well as cure. Our point of view is 
rational psychotherapy, with the addition, 
when needed, of spiritual suggestion and the 
re-education of the whole mental outlook 
toward God and man. 

The special studies that I have been fol- 
lowing in these lines for the past ten years, 
I am sure, have enriched my own ministry, 
both in sermonic directness and appeal, and 
in practical helpfulness in pastoral visita- 
tions. These conclusions are not hasty ones. 
Nine years ago, in a published pamphlet of 
lectures before the University of Maryland 
and church conferences, and some time 
earlier than the Emmanuel Movement was 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xxv 

conceived, I contended that " the basis that 
is really vital in Christian Science teaching, 
without its extravagancies and inconsisten- 
cies, — we have been preaching and practicing 
in this church of ours for years, and the 
same might be said of many another church 
in this city. This is what we mean. We 
have been preaching cheerfulness, optimism, 
don't worry, calmness. We have been 
preaching faith in God and the healing power 
of God's love in the whole life. We have 
been preaching the supremacy of the spirit, 
that nothing is eternal but the soul and 
God. We have been constantly trying to 
make our church an assembly of hopeful, 
healthy minds, and by that means to re-in- 
force every physician's work and to give 
to every heart the uplifting realization of the 
very presence of God. As a matter of fact, 
this very church of ours, to use a further 
concrete illustration, although the same state- 
ment might truly be made of many another 
church in this city — this very church of ours 
is a greater curative agency than any Chris- 
tian Science church in Baltimore or Boston. 
We have seven or more excellent physicians 
as members of our congregation. The pas- 
tor by his preaching and in his pastoral vis- 



xxvi AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

itation, counsel and prayers, as well as in 
more direct ways, aims to cooperate with 
every one of these in healing processes. The 
pastor's prayers and preaching and visiting 
are all in the line of the awakening of faith 
and the promoting of cheerfulness and the 
emphasizing of the good promises and good 
purposes of God. The pastor and these seven 
physicians have not taken written testimon- 
ials during the past year, nor have they talked 
about them, and yet we are well assured that 
there are hundreds of cases of cures, posi- 
tive cures, wrought this past year by the co- 
operating agencies of this church. We have 
used good nursing, some medicine when 
necessary, and a strong infusion of reason- 
ableness and Christian faith. We have not 
despised medicine, wisely given to assist na- 
ture, for we have obtained through medicine 
a far larger percentage of cures than the 
Christian Scientists without medicine. We 
can reach more cases. As a matter of fact, 
the Christian Scientists have nothing but what 
we have and can use, and besides faith and 
hope and will-power which we instill, we also 
use the best skill and experience of trained 
physicians. Indeed, as a matter of plain fact, 
so far the very best institution of real Chris- 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD xxvii 

tian Science, of genuine healing power, in 
this city is the Johns Hopkins Hospital, — a 
noble outcome of both true Christianity and 
true science." 

Oliver Huckel. 

Baltimore, April 10, 1909. 



INTRODUCTION 

OURING the past winter the Rev. 
Dr. Oliver Huckel acceded to the 
request of the Young Men's 
Christian Association of the Johns 
Hopkins Medical School to give 
a series of talks upon the methods of help- 
ing troubled minds which had proven use- 
ful to him in his pastoral experience. These 
talks were highly valued by the students who 
were privileged to listen to them; and now 
that Dr. Huckel has consented to publish 
them, they will, I feel sure, discover a large 
circle of appreciative readers. 

Medical men and clergymen do not al- 
ways agree regarding fundamental principles, 
but as medicine becomes more enlightened 
and religion more liberal, there is an ever 
widening area of common ground on which 
the representatives of these two great profes- 
sions may meet and co-operate. Though 
there has been strife between religion and 
science, there is no conflict between medical 
truth and religious truth ; where there is con- 
xxix 



xxx INTRODUCTION 

tention we may be sure that on one side 
or the other, or on both sides, the truth is 
only partially revealed. 

A field which has always been of interest, 
both to the physician and the clergyman, is 
that of the milder mental disturbances to 
which a large contingent of the human race 
is subject. It falls to the lot of every pas- 
toral worker to comfort the troubled and de- 
pressed, to soothe the disturbed, to try to 
stimulate the apathetic, to attempt to quiet 
the unduly exalted, to help to strengthen the 
enfeebled will, to chide the faulty and 
negligent, and to rebuke the morally delin- 
quent and depraved. It is a part of the 
work of medical men to recognize and treat 
anomalies of the intellect, the emotions and 
the will; to deal with disturbances of sensa- 
tion, of memory, of attention, of feeling, of 
judgment, of voluntary motion or conduct 
and of the involuntary motor activities which 
are known as reflexes and instincts. Qergy- 
men deal with these matters in their own 
way, and physicians, independently, have 
worked out their special methods for manag- 
ing them. For a long time it seemed 
scarcely to be recognized that clergymen and 
physicians were trying to solve similar, if 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

not in many instances identical, problems, but 
recently the recognition has become more 
general. Considering the progress of the 
doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism this is 
by no means surprising; it is strange only 
that people should regard it as strange. 

There can be but little doubt that all work 
as yet in the field of mental medicine is to 
be looked upon as rudimentary, but the ap- 
plication of the exact methods of psychol- 
ogists, studying normal mental processes, and 
of psychiatrists, analyzing diseased mental 
states, is gradually supplying the data for a 
foundation upon which a sound mental medi- 
cine may be built up. 

It has often occurred to me that physicians 
are prone to be so interested in the physical 
side of their patients that they sometimes 
neglect the study of the psychic state, and I 
have also, for a long time, felt that clergy- 
men are inclined, on account of their interest 
in the moral and spiritual side of man, to 
lose sight of the physical and to hold men 
responsible for and to condemn as " sinful/' 
acts and mental attitudes which are the deter- 
mined activities of disordered brains. 

There are some medical men who believe 
that it is a mistake for clergymen to make 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

any effort to help the disordered mind, main- 
taining that all such " cases " belong to the 
physician. On the other hand there would 
appear to be some clergymen who regard the 
inquiries of a medical man who resorts to 
modern methods of psycho-analysis as an in- 
fringement upon the prerogatives of a pro- 
fession, whose work it is to deal with the 
affairs of the human " soul." Both these at- 
titudes seem to me unfair and illogical,, 
though I am ready to grant that there is 
danger of grave mistakes being made by 
both groups of workers. 

It seems to me, therefore, all the more 
desirable that the minister should understand 
the attitude of physicians, and that the medi- 
cal man should try to learn the point of view 
of the clergyman. Let each give of his best 
to the other and let each welcome warnings 
of feet that go astray ! 

Lewellys F. Barker. 
Baltimore, April 6, 1909. 



FIRST CONFERENCE 

Mental and Spiritual Factors in the Problem 
of Health 

I. The New Outlook For Health. 
II. The Unique Powers of the Mind. 
III. The Spiritual Mastery of the Body. 



I. THE NEW OUTLOOK FOR HEALTH 

OO you remember Thomas Car- 
lyle's ideal of health, notable 
from one who had wretched 
health most of his life, a des- 
perate digestion and consequently 
a savage temper. Nevertheless he had an 
ideal of health, and it was this : " In the 
midst of your zeal and ardor remember the 
care of health. ... It would have been a 
very great thing for me if I had been able 
to consider that health is a thing to be at- 
tended to continually, that you are to regard 
good health as the very highest of all tem- 
poral things for you. There is no kind of 
achievement you can make in the world that 
is equal to perfect health. What to it are 
nuggets and millions? The French financier 
said, ' Why is there no sleep to be sold ! ' 
Sleep was not in the market at any quota- 
tion." He continues : " You could not get 
any better definition of what ' holy ' really is 
than ' healthy.' Completely healthy means, 
'mens sana in corpore sano/ a man all lucid 
3 



4 MENTAL MEDICINE 

and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mir- 
ror, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and 
impressions made on it, and showing all 
things in their correct proportions; healthy, 
clear and free." That was Carlyle's vision 
of perfect health. 

We are now in the days of specialists, and 
a most necessary and admirable work they 
are doing. But even the specialization of 
functions has its limitations and its inade- 
quacies. For a " man is not made up in air- 
tight compartments, each of which can be 
treated as an entirety, wholly separable from 
the rest of his life," nor is man merely " a 
bundle of organs, each of which can be 
safely handed over to a specialist, and health 
thereby secured." There is coming to be a 
new insistence in these days on the close and 
intimate relationship of all parts of the body 
and the subtle sympathy in health or disease 
that pervades the whole system. In other 
words, greater recognition is being given to 
the integer man, — the whole man, a living 
organism in one undivided totality from 
center to circumference, through soul, and 
mind and body. And therefore, it is being 
realized that in many cases of medical 
treatment, not merely one organ but the 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 5 

whole man must be taken into consideration 
and treated. 

The age of specialists has also brought into 
prominence, as perhaps never before, the 
alarming evidence that the prevailing maladies 
of our day are nervous and functional dis- 
orders. These are the facts, as given in vari- 
ous medical authorities. A large part of the 
diseases of modern times are entirely men- 
tal, so-called imaginary, various forms of 
hypochondria. A large part are mentally 
induced. A large part are of the protean 
malady of our age, — nervous troubles, — 
which are largely mental and partly physi- 
cal. And only a comparatively small 
percentage are simply and entirely phys- 
ical. 

Therefore, a science which studies only 
the workings of material factors upon a ma- 
terial organization may be well enough as 
far as it goes, but it is not fully adequate for 
the prevailing and desperate needs of our 
day. Mind plays a large part in every phase 
and action of bodily life. Mental factors 
must be more largely recognized and taken 
into account. Medical schools have been 
slow in doing this work. In consequence, 
there has grown up in our day various so- 



6 MENTAL MEDICINE 

called curative agencies which seek to sup- 
plement the medical profession. They are 
mostly irregular systems, many of them il- 
logical and entirely unscientific, some of them 
full of absurdities and charlatanism. Yet we 
are being taught in these days, even by these 
movements in more distinct ways than ever, 
the wonderful influence of mind over mat- 
ter, of brain over body. 

It is acknowledged that the greatest field 
for mental medicine is co-operation with 
physical treatment in the restoration of the 
nerves to equilibrium, right adjustment and 
normal action. The disorders of the nervous 
system are the most numerous class of ail- 
ments in our day. The nervous system it- 
self is most complex and of infinite delicacy. 
Its diseases are subtle and diffused in the sys- 
tem, often affecting separate parts, or the 
whole system. Its symptoms are most va- 
ried, the classification of its forms most diffi- 
cult. 

It was formerly customary to speak of 
the general condition as nervous prostra- 
tion. Now it is usually referred to as 
neurasthenia. But neurasthenia has many 
special forms and varieties, each with its sep- 
arate scientific name. We need not go into 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 7 

the classification or description; you know 
well enough in general what they are. 

"What is ordinarily called nervousness," 
says one writer, " is not a disease, but a con- 
dition, the result of overstrain or overstimu- 
lation of the nervous system. The most 
healthy person may feel this at times. But 
it may pass off through rest or better condi- 
tions. But when it becomes acute and long 
continued, and causes general physical de- 
bility, then it has become a disease and is 
called neurasthenia. " 

According to Dr. William Osier, the three 
great advances of the century made by the 
medical profession have been a knowledge 
of the mode of controlling epidemic diseases, 
the introduction of anaesthetics, and the adop- 
tion of antiseptic methods in surgery. 

" Think," he says, " of the Nemesis which 
has overtaken pain during the past fifty 
years. Anaesthetics and antiseptic surgery 
have almost manacled the demon, and since 
their introduction the aggregate of pain 
which has been prevented far outweighs in 
civilized communities that which has been 
suffered." 

He says again : " The sorrows and 
troubles of men, it is true, have not been ma- 



8 MENTAL MEDICINE 

■ilv diminished, but bodily pain and suf- 
though not abolished, have been as- 
.v\l as never hefore, and the share ol 
in the ' weltschmen ' had been enor- 
mously lessened** 1 

Mom while it is true that tuberculosis, 
diphtheria, yellow fever, and the whole b\ 

PUS and infectious diseases luvo 

\ ielding to the attack of med enc$ 

and ste idity diminishing, nervous disorders 
;-.:\ e been inci easing and 

- must 
a sis, 
►sj chothei apj is b< 
o ie nc •. p amis or in the | 

\> 

\ e itnd, 

ceases 

eh have 

• • c 

5 

s capable o a se 






THE NEW OUTLOOK 9 

psychic, and a psychic disease needs psychic 
treatment. Then he asks this question : " Can 
we by means of the mind often escape illness, 
prevent functional troubles, diminish or sup- 
press those which already exist?" And in 
his opinion, backed by long experience, this 
is certainly possible. 

" The care of the human being as a whole 
soul and body, is increasingly coming to the 
front/' says Dr. A. T. Schofield. And in 
the same way the wise physician must grasp 
the underlying unity of the spiritual and the 
material, and recognize that if the body may 
and does influence the diseases of the soul, 
so does the mind influence states and dis- 
eases of the body. " I utterly refuse," he 
continues, " to regard the mental factor in 
medicine as a retrogression. It is, on the 
contrary, a step, and a great step, in advance, 
for the day is past when the physician can 
limit his knowledge and practice to the phys- 
ical." * 

Professor Ladd, in an article in the Medi- 
cal Tunes, says : " The effects capable of 
being produced by mind on body are very 
clear, real and considerable, and while in 
all ages they have been the chief therapeutic 

* Dr. Schofield — The Mental Factor in Medicine, 



io MENTAL MEDICINE 

agents on which the charlatan and quack 
have relied, they have probably been less 
trusted and utilized by the scientific phy- 
sician than experience warrants or psychol- 
ogy suggests." 

Dr. Charles K. Mills, professor of neurol- 
ogy at the University of Pennsylvania, has 
called attention to this distinction in an article 
on " Psychotherapy : its Scope and Limita- 
tions." * Pie says : " Psychic medicine and 
mystic medicine are terms sometimes used as 
if they were interchangeable. This is not 
the exact truth. In a certain sense mystic 
medicine is psychic medicine, but the reverse 
does not, or at least should not, hold good. 
In the incantations of the medicine men, of 
the savages, in the appeals to omens and to 
oracles, in the calling upon the sun and the 
stars to relieve the sick and the helpless, in 
the ministrations of Mrs. Eddy and her apos- 
tles, in the resort to healing shrines of 'every 
description, the psychic element is easily dis- 
coverable. These and other forms of mystic 
healing appeal to the superstition or the im- 
agination of the individual ; they play both 
upon his normal and abnormal suggestibility. 

* Monthly Cyclopedia and Medical Bulletin, July 
1908.) 



THE NEW OUTLOOK n 

They do this, however, not from the stand- 
point of the sane and scientific believer in 
the proper use of suggestion. They attrib- 
ute cures to supernatural interferences, and 
in this way deceive in the very act of help- 
ing. The psychic medicine in which the 
doctor should be continuously interested is 
that in which the use of mental influences is 
as the use of water, medicine, electricity, the 
surgeon's knife, or the forceps of the ob- 
stetrician." 

The psychotherapy which makes the very 
least possible use of hypnotism, and which 
depends largely on methods of absolute sin- 
cerity with the patient, and the re-education 
of the mentality with the conscious co-opera- 
tion of the patient, is the line of work which 
is most commending itself to thoughtful peo- 
ple in these days. As Dr. Charles K. Mills 
continues : " DuBois comes to us saying that 
the best psychotherapeutic method is that of 
reasoning or persuasion, that of informing 
the patient as to the nature of his case and 
of reasoning him into the belief that it is 
curable, and that he (the patient) can help 
out this cure. This is not a new plan of 
curing or attempting to cure the sick. It has 
existed wherever good physicians have used 



12 MENTAL MEDICINE 

their mental powers for their fellows. The 
doctor of the metropolis, of the town or of 
the cross-roads, if one well fitted for his vo- 
cation, has successfully exercised this art of 
persuasion, as he has also that of appealing 
to blind faith. A debt however is due to 
DuBois, to Prince, to Putman, and to others 
working in this field, for concentrating the 
attention of the profession on the value of 
persuasive or reasoning methods, and on the 
best way of using them for the relief of 
nervous ills. Methods of education and of 
persuasion have been illuminated by them and, 
in so far as such methods are more clearly 
seen and better understood, are likely to be 
more largely and effectively employed." 
Suggestion probably enters into all psy- 
chotherapy, but in the educational method is 
more than mere suggestion. 

So also, Dr. Richard M. Cabot gives tes- 
timony: "Let us bear in mind that it is by 
a catholic inclusiveness of all that is good 
in many methods of attacking disease, and 
by an effective combination of explanation, 
education, command (or suggestion) joined 
with all the other therapeutic resources, 
psychic, chemical, and physical, that the 
American type of psychotherapeutics can hope 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 13 

for success. Let us search for no panacea, 
neglect no aspect of human nature, make no 
exclusive appeal to the conscious, the sub- 
conscious, the physical, chemical or biologi- 
cal sides of human nature. We want to cure 
the whole man, not any section of him. Is it 
not obvious, then, that we should study every 
element of human nature, and try to under- 
stand as best we may the complex interac- 
tions and team work of body and soul?" 

It is an earnest company of eminent scien- 
tific men who have been working to put the 
whole subject of psychotherapeutics on a 
rational basis. Prominent among them are, 
Liebault, Bernheim, Janet, Forel, DuBois, 
Moll, Meyers, Braid, Bramewell, Oppenheim, 
Schofield; and in our own country, William 
James, Mark Baldwin, Morton Prince, 
Lewellys F. Barker, W. J. Hudson, Isador 
H. Coriat, James J. Putman, Frederick Pe- 
terson, Boris Sidis, Wood, Dresser, and a 
hundred more. The careful and unique ex- 
plorations of these scientific investigators into 
the subconsciousness of patients suffering 
with various nervous disorders have given 
results most interesting and important and 
have revealed marvelous possibilities of the 
human mind. 



14 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Some of these men are doing inestimable 
service, especially in disclosing the sub- 
conscious and subliminal realms. Others 
through their " fresh, strong, inspirational 
thinking, are doing valiant pioneering upon 
both the spiritual and human sides of the 
heretofore great divide/' and are elucidating 
deep things in their new thinking, while others 
along more technical lines are turning " psy- 
chologic knowledge into therapeutic account," 
and are calling upon the entire medical pro- 
fession to see and be convinced of the power 
of mind in many cases to cure many bodily 
diseases. 

Now what possible part has religion in 
this work? 

As to the direct helpfulness of a minister's 
work in co-operation with physicians, we may 
look at the large and broad value of the 
Christian spirit and truth. Dr. Matthews states 
in his recommendation of right thinking as 
necessary to right acts and results : " Chris- 
tianity is the greatest teacher of right thinking, 
and its wonderful power to prevent disease is 
just beginning to be realized. That it is the 
greatest power in the world to prevent disease 
no doctor who has had practice and experience 
enough to know doubts. No one can realize 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 15 

better than a doctor what an amazingly large 
percentage of diseases result from immoral- 
ity, dissipation, and weak will-power, from 
ignorance, from unclean thinking and un- 
clean living — in short from leading lives the 
Bible condemns on every page. Perhaps fifty 
per cent, of all diseases is due directly or in- 
directly to these causes. Can Christianity 
prevent fifty per cent, of the sickness that now 
prevails? I believe it can. But it must be 
directed to that end. Electricity is a great 
power. Applied one way it produces heat; 
in another way, light; in another it moves 
machinery; in another it transmits messages. 
So Christianity applied in one way civilizes 
and lifts up ; in another way it purifies the 
heart; in another it prevents disease. There 
will be a great awakening throughout the 
world when people realize that Christianity 
prevents disease and adds years to human 
life. It pays to be a Christian right here in 
this world, without any reference to a fu- 
ture world." 

Such helpful teaching, concerning the fun- 
damentals of normal and wholesome living can 
be given from the pulpit and in pastoral vis- 
iting, and in personal relations with the peo- 
ple. 



i6 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Still another way in which the minister can 
help is by special courses of health-sermons 
from time to time in his church. These may 
be made to supplement the general teaching 
of Christianity by definite applications to the 
problems of health. There is a real gospel 
of the body. Such a general line of thought 
and teaching as is indicated in the themes of 
these addresses might be sufficient for these 
teachings. It might also be wise to have 
health classes for yet fuller study along these 
lines, but it is a doubtful experiment to in- 
augurate church-clinics for the cure of dis- 
ease. This work had much better be left to 
the regular physicians. 

Besides this, however, a minister, if he is 
wise and interested in these things, may often 
co-operate most helpfully with a physician in 
regard to certain cases, giving his aid at the 
request of the physician under his direction. 
There are nervous diseases which need em- 
phatically the fullest help in physical, mental 
and spiritual ways. The minister can often 
furnish the spiritual factor that is needed, and 
be of real service. 

There is still another more direct method of 
co-operation and helpfulness. The pastor can 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 17 

often consult with the physician, even in the 
diagnosis, and sometimes throw great light 
on the case by giving the mental or spiritual 
factors involved. A patient will frequently 
tell his pastor certain things that he would 
not think to mention to a medical man, and 
yet these items may mean a great deal in 
understanding the patient's real history and 
condition and the definite needs and treat- 
ment. 

As Dr. MacDonald has also borne testi- 
mony : " Often the first help of cure is ' con- 
fession/ wherein the patient unburdens himself 
of his worries, confesses his follies and in- 
dulgences that go back for years, perhaps, 
holding him in chains and binding him to 
his present diseased condition. There is 
large benefit to the sufferer in this opportu- 
nity to free his mind to a sympathetic listener. 
It also opens avenues for insight into the 
nature of a person's malady, so that curative 
suggestion can be the easier applied. We 
all know the value of a heart-to-heart talk 
with one who can enter into our grief sym- 
pathetically. It relaxes and rests us. The 
old restrictions become unloosed. We ex- 
perience a sense of freedom and ease. And 



18 MENTAL MEDICINE 

if the person to whom we confide the secret 
of our discontent has the ability to help us 
out of our misery, our very confidence in 
him has curative f orce." * 

Closely allied to this is the so-called psy- 
cho-analysis, one of the newer psychological 
methods of discovering the mental conditions 
causing nervous disorder This method, as 
one describes it, is a " kind of detective which 
turns the subconsciousness inside out like a 
glove and brings to light hidden causes of 
nervous trouble, a shock, perhaps, emotional 
or physical, a grief, a fancied injury, which 
the patient sometimes has forgotten entirely 
but which, hidden in the depths of conscious- 
ness, has been working like a poison. Akin 
to this is the intimate talk we have with those 
who come as patients which reveals a life's 
experience and gives the understanding of 
temperament necessary for an intelligent 
handling of the case. In these conversations 
disclosures are made of suffering in the in- 
ner life of thought and feeling that has 
never been confessed to the nearest and dear- 
est of friends and relatives. . . B Each case 
is a law unto itself and the cause that often 
underlies the apparent cause must be discov- 

* Robert MacDonald — Mind, Religion and Health. 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 19 

ered and overcome before a wholesome con- 
dition of mind can be established." * 

But in all this personal relation with the 
sick, both ministers and physicians must be 
perfectly frank and honest with patients, — 
no deception or subterfuges. We must have 
their absolute confidence and trust in order 
to do them good. No deception about pres- 
ent conditions and no false promises for the 
future. But this does not mean that we 
should exaggerate conditions. It is just as 
bad to be an alarmist. It is false treatment 
to look on the dark side. If there is a single 
ray of hope, any scintilla of light, then it is 
the physician's bounden duty, or the minis- 
ter's, if he have the physician's consent, to 
give encouragement, to suggest hope and 
courage, to make continually what Dr. Cabot 
calls " creative assertions." 

In a word, in psychotherapy, either purely 
mental, or mental and spiritual combined, the 
object is not merely to give a few specific 
ideas and directions, but also to create an at- 
mosphere in which these ideas may work. 
The object of these addresses is, both to give 
the great essential ideas that inspire new life, 
new hope, new health, and also to create at 

* Fallows — Health and Happiness. 



20 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the same time the right atmosphere in the 
mind and spirit, so that the ideals will have a 
good soil in which to grow. This is not done 
in a single half hour, but requires longer 
periods of time. 

When we talk about health, we mean both 
spiritual and bodily health. We are em- 
phasizing a neglected truth when we are as- 
serting that the laws of health are the laws 
of God, and that sin and sickness are very 
intimately associated in God's universe. The 
true gospel does not really begin with its 
outward treatments, but it seeks instantly to 
get a hold on the soul. It begins with the 
sources of life. It is, therefore, not merely 
a system of therapeutics, but a religion that 
seeks to be therapeutic. 

This is the idea in a nutshell, as Rev. 
Charles A. Place puts it : " The first step 
is to free a man from the idea that he is a 
victim of some strange power by showing 
him the real cause; then the demand is to 
build up his moral control and confidence in 
himself. To accomplish this latter, the soul 
must be awakened to the worth of its own 
powers and how to use them and led out of 
all narrowness to a richer life with man and 
with God. This is the all-important work of 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 21 

the minister, dealing directly with the soul 
and its sources of strength within and with- 
out, and combining sound psychology and 
sound religion." 

Personally, I believe that the full direction 
of this new movement must ultimately rest 
with the physicians, and that the ministers, 
if they remain in it at all, shall merely aid 
in special ways under the supervision and 
cordial consent of the physicians. Conserva- 
tive and scientific methods must be used even 
in advance work. Special courses in colleges 
and medical schools will doubtless be in- 
stituted for the purpose of rendering more 
efficient service. The preliminary diagnosis 
and psychic analysis will gradually become 
more definite and illuminating and we may 
" reasonably expect that the satisfactory re- 
sults will be proportionately larger." 

We must, however, recognize the fact that 
this age in which we live is characterized by 
a new hope and a new outlook for health. 
Such great truths as these are coming to the 
front. God wills health for us. It is not 
God's wish or will that any one of us shall 
suffer. He wants us well, — physically, spir- 
itually well— every whit whole. He wants us 
normal and perfect. That is God's idea for 



22 MENTAL MEDICINE 

us. It is, therefore, both foolish and wicked 
to endure ill-health and disease so long as 
there is any hope or means of cure. 

Another truth is coming to the fore : All's 
law, — but all's love. All is law, — God's law, 
both natural and spiritual. And it is the in- 
variability and reliability of all God's law that 
is their kindness. 

The laws of health are God's laws, — both 
natural and spiritual. Obeyed, they bring 
health; broken, they bring sickness. There 
is God's kindness and love in this law of 
consequences. 

In the ordinary civil life, if we flagrantly 
break the law, we are punished. Ignorance 
of the law does not excuse us. It is our 
business to learn the law and keep it. So 
in the matter of health; ignorance of the 
laws of health will not excuse us. We must 
learn the law and keep it. All our sickness 
comes to us either by our ignorance or our 
wilfulness or through ignorance or wilful- 
ness of others, — ancestors, parents, nurses or 
friends. 

This truth is gaining wider acceptance. 
God never arbitrarily sends sickness upon us 
as punishment, test or discipline, but it comes 
always as a penalty for broken laws, broken 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 23 

consciously or unconsciously, broken by our- 
selves or by our ancestors, or by others who 
influence us. 

We must learn God's laws and obey them. 
We cannot dissipate and expect good health; 
the law will exact its penalties ; we cannot 
be gluttons in eating and expect good health ; 
we cannot burn the candle at both ends and 
expect steady nerves. Back of every physical 
ailment, there is a broken law. We must 
learn God's laws and obey them. 

A further truth is that we cannot demand 
health from God ; we must follow God's laws. 
We need not pray for health, — it will be use- 
less- — unless we are willing to fulfil the con- 
ditions. Our whole purpose must be to learn 
the fundamental laws of God for health, for 
they are all harmonious, and then to put the 
divine principles into daily practice. 

But how far do we know the laws of 
health? How far may we learn these funda- 
mental principles of well-being? We can- 
not say that we know them all, — there are still 
mysteries and undiscovered laws. But we 
already know enough to help us all toward 
better living and into better health. We al- 
ready know more than we practice. 

But someone asks, — How are we trans- 



24 MENTAL MEDICINE 

gressing God's law, when walking along the 
street we are caught by some disease germs 
in the air from a passing stranger and be- 
come sick? We are not, of course, con- 
sciously transgressing, but we are trans- 
gressing* God's laws unless we keep 
ourselves in such good condition that we 
can resist germs. Germs take hold of weak, 
run-down physical condition. Here is where 
the transgression is manifest. We have no 
right to let ourselves run down physically; 
it is our duty to keep in prime condition. 
Then we are practically immune. 

But what of epidemics of small-pox or 
yellow- f ever ? How does transgression come 
in where the plague seems to attack every- 
body indiscriminately, even those in good 
condition? It is, indeed, perplexing; but we 
may say: Often an epidemic comes because 
of transgression, not of an individual, but of 
a community or city, in not providing sani- 
tary conditions, or in not taking the right- 
ful sanitary precautions. 

Even in such conditions as these, mental 
and spiritual matters count. For instance, 
those who are not afraid are usually immune. 
If we get rid of fear we are far less liable 
to attack. It is fear that weakens and kills. 

Another truth is receiving new emphasis. 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 25 

Pain is not a penalty, punishment or dis- 
cipline, — not something merely disagreeable 
that has to be endured. It is a danger sig- 
nal to tell us we are doing wrong — that some- 
thing is deranged in our life. We must not 
go on but stop and see what is wrong, and 
right it. Pain is like the notice often put up 
at railroad crossings : " Stop, look, listen ! " 
See what is wrong; right it if you are able; 
retrieve the broken law. Pain, therefore, 
is a friendly adviser, a kindly friend, 
a messenger from God. God sends pain 
in this sense, never arbitrarily, but to 
teach us His laws and how to obey 
them. 

Now all these truths are important be- 
cause we want to create in souls the spirit 
of resistance to disease and diseased moods 
and habits, and a determination to fight 
against sickness with all the means that God 
puts into our hands. We want to get rid 
of the acquiescent and passive mood in the 
presence of disease. We must realize that 
we are in this fight in accordance with God's 
will. We must remember that He approves 
of our efTort and fight for health; and we 
must be sure, — for it is a fact, — that He will 
assist us in this fight for health in every 
possible way. We are made for health; we 



26 MENTAL MEDICINE 

are made for happiness ; and the life that at- 
tains nearest to both these things is usually 
the life that has come into fullest harmony 
with God. Harmony, then, is what we teach 
and preach, — harmony with God's laws, har- 
mony with God's will. For it is not physical 
health alone that is the object of life, but the 
health of the spirit, the health of the whole 
life. 

Many people in these days are spoiling their 
lives for lack of knowledge or lack of care in 
these fundamentals of rational living and good 
health. We want to remind them of certain 
great facts and principles which they ought 
to know, or if they do know, have forgotten 
how to use. 

We believe that the church has a great 
duty and service that it can render in put- 
ting the emphasis more strenuously on these 
things that make for right living. It has 
worked somewhat along these lines all 
through the centuries. We believe that it 
can do this work yet more systematically and 
effectively. It must get away from morbid 
teachings, morbid emotions and morbid 
moods in religion. It must emphasize the 
wholesome and optimistic heart of true re- 
ligion. 



THE NEW OUTLOOK 27 

May we remind you again that these are not 
medical lectures, but spiritual addresses. We 
shall aim to consider health through the in- 
ner springs of life, through the divine and 
latent forces in the life, through the re-edu- 
cation of the man in the first principles of 
right living. We shall aim to help methods 
of healing by an appeal to the regulative and 
recuperative faculties of the mind, when 
stimulated and strengthened by a new in- 
fusion of faith and prayer. We shall aim to 
show that the essential principles of religion 
are in fullest harmony with the latest find- 
ings of science, as revealed in psychology 
and physiology. 

We must not, however, expect impossibil- 
ities. Only a certain class of cases can be 
met and helped in this way. Other cases, 
where the trouble is exceptional, or where 
the cause is organic derangement, must seek 
the advice and treatment of the best phy- 
sicians. But many cases, we are sure, need 
only mental stimulus and spiritual outlook. 

In the care of our bodies we must not neg- 
lect our souls. We must save both body 
and soul. We work for the redemption of 
the entire life. 



II. THE UNIQUE POWERS OF MIND 

CONSIDER the unique influence 
of mind over body. We are 
recognizing it as a singular and 
marvelous power. It has been 
manifested in all ages. It has 
been studied carefully and systematically only 
in the last few generations. 

May I recall to you two or three instances 
that show very strikingly the power of mind 
over body? 

Take such an incident as this, which is re- 
lated by General Grant in his Memoirs : " The 
night before General Lee's surrender General 
Grant was suffering so acutely from a head- 
ache that he could not sleep. It was a split- 
ting headache and no wonder, with the gal- 
lant Lee to contend with. He spent the night 
trying vainly to alleviate the pain; bathing 
his feet in hot water and mustard, and put- 
ting hot mustard plasters on his wrists and 
on the back part of his neck. When the 
officer bearing General Lee's letter reached 
him, he writes : ' I was still suffering from 
28 



POWERS OF MIND 29 

the sick headache, but the instant I saw the 
contents of the note, I was cured/ " 

It is related that " during the naval fight 
off Santiago, while the Oregon was pushing 
after the Cristobal Colon, under forced 
draught, the stokers were nearly overcome 
by their great labor, and the tremendous heat 
of the hold. As yet she had not partaken in 
the fight. The chief engineer, noticing the 
condition of his men, signaled up to Captain 
Clark, ' Give them a gun.' The gun was 
given — and exhaustion passed away in the 
excitement of the belief that the battle had 
begun. " 

Hundreds of similar cases might be cited. 
This incident is well authenticated : Once 
at Weimar, Luther found Melancthan very 
ill. His eyes were dim, his tongue faltering, 
his understanding almost gone. " Alas," com- 
plained Luther, " that the devil should have 
thus unstrung so fine an instrument." Then 
he knelt beside his sick friend and prayed. 
Soon he stood up and cried, " Be of good 
cheer, Philip; you shall not die. It is God's 
delight to impart life, not to inflict death. 
Trust in the Lord for He can impart new 
life." And Melancthan recovered from his 
illness. 



30 MENTAL MEDICINE 

It is related that when Benvenuto Cellini 
was about to cast his famous statue of Per- 
seus, now in the Loggia dei Lanzi at Flor- 
ence, he was taken with a sudden fever and 
forced to go home to bed. In the midst of 
his suffering, one of his workmen rushed in 
to say : " O Benvenuto, your statue is 
spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of 
saving it." Dressing hastily, he rushed to 
his furnace and found his metal " caked." 
Ordering dry oak wood brought in, he fired 
the furnace fiercely, working in a rain that 
was falling, stirred the channels, and saved his 
metal. He continues the story thus : " After 
all was over, I turned to a plate of salad on 
a bench there and ate with a hearty appe- 
tite, and drank together with the whole crew. 
Afterward I retired to my bed, healthy and 
happy, for it was now two hours before 
morning, and slept as sweetly as though I 
had never felt a touch of illness." His over- 
powering idea of saving his statue drove 
away the physical condition and left him well. 

Someone asked Dr. Elisha Kane, the Arc- 
tic explorer, to give the best proved instance 
that he knew of the soul's power over the 
body. He paused a moment upon the ques- 
tion, as if to feel how it was put, and an- 



POWERS OF MIND 31 

swered as with a spring : " The soul can 
lift the body out of its boots, sir ! When our 
captain was dying — I say dying — I have 
seen scurvy enough to know — every old scar 
on his body an ulcer — I never saw a 
case so bad that either lived or died of 
it, usually long before they are as ill as he 
was — there was trouble abroad. There might 
be mutiny as soon as the breath was out of 
his body. We might be at each other's 
throats. I felt that he owed the repose of 
the dying to the service. I went down to 
his bunk and shouted in his ear, ' Mutiny, 
Captain, mutiny ! ' He shook off the cadav- 
erous stupor. ' Set me up ! ' said he, ' and 
order these fellows before me ! ' He heard 
the complaint, ordered punishment, and from 
that hour convalesced/' 

It is stated that scientific experiments by 
Prof. W. G. Anderson of Yale University, 
recently, succeeded in practically weighing 
the result of thought's action. A student 
was poised on a balance so that the center 
of gravity of his body was exactly over its 
center. Set to solving mathematical prob- 
lems, the increased weight of blood at his 
head, during the process of calculation, 
changed his center of gravity and caused an 



32 MENTAL MEDICINE 

immediate dip of the balance to that side. 
Repeating the nine multiplication table 
caused a greater displacement than repeating 
ihe table of fives, and in general, the dis- 
placement grew greater with greater intensity 
of thought. Carrying the experiment fur- 
ther, the experimenter had the student im- 
agine himself going through leg gymnastics. 
As he performed the feats mentally, one by 
one, the blood flowed to the limbs in quan- 
tities sufficient to tip the balance according 
to the movement thought ,of. By purely 
mental action the center of gravity of the 
body was shifted four inches, or as much as 
by raising the doubled arms over the shoul- 
ders. These experiments were repeated on 
a large number of students with the same re- 
sults. * 

Now, if mind has such influence over body, 
as seems to be indicated in these instances, 
is it not reasonable to suppose that mental 
action can also do much in the control of 
the nerves and nervous disorders? It has 
been clearly demonstrated that mental power 
has such control, and can be most effectively 
used. 

As Hudson says : " No scientist will deny 

* Noted by Dr. Marden in Every Man a King. 



POWERS OF MIND 33 

the existence within us of a central intelli- 
gence which controls the bodily functions, 
and through the sympathetic nervous sys- 
tem actuates the involuntary muscles and 
keeps the bodily machinery in motion. Nor 
will the most pronounced materialist deny 
that this central intelligence is the control- 
ling energy which regulates the action of each 
of the myriad cellular entities of which the 
whole body is composed/' 

There are at least five or six irregular 
curative agencies in the modern world that 
claim our attention, so strikingly do they illus- 
trate this power of mind over body. Take, 
for instance, the cures made by the Indian 
medicine men. Those who have lived among 
the Indians as government agents and mis- 
sionaries have borne testimony that they were 
astonished to find that what they had re- 
garded as the absolute superstition of the 
belief in medicine men, was something that 
seemed to have value; that there were most 
remarkable cures effected by the dances, 
croonings and incantations of the medicine 
men. 

Cures made at Roman shrines are well 
known. All through France and Italy there 
are these wonder-working images and shrines, 



34 MENTAL MEDICINE 

and sometimes there are hundreds of votive 
tablets and offerings left at the shrine by 
those who have been healed, — gold watches, 
necklaces, diamonds, crutches, and all sorts 
of testimonials in metal and marble. The 
cures at St. Anne du Beaupre, near Quebec, 
in Canada, have been officially noted and ex- 
amined and certified to by the French phy- 
sicians. 

Cures through popular superstitions are 
authenticated. There are many contem- 
porary records that show that the cure of 
scrofula or King's Evil by the touch of the 
king was more than superstition. In many 
cases it really effected cures, as certified to 
by the London physicians of that day. There 
are recorded instances of stigmata appearing 
on the body in five places of the wounds of 
Christ, — like the famous case of St. Francis 
of Assisi. Several modern cases, such as 
the one in a hypnotic subject in a Paris hos- 
pital, were cured by persistently changing 
the thought from the passion of Christ to 
some other theme. 

Numerous cures have been wrought by 
patent medicines, some of which may be ex- 
cellent, but most of which are worthless. Yet 
if the absolutely worthless one is well adver- 



POWERS OF MIND 35 

tised, it never fails to effect some remarkable 
cures. No medicine on the market but what 
has hundreds of splendid testimonials of 
cures actually wrought in some way by and 
through that medicine. And, finally, there 
are constant cures made by non-efficacious 
remedies in physicians' practice. Physicians 
at the University of Pennsylvania tell of ex- 
periments with wooden magnets which often 
produced the same results and the same cure 
as the metal ones. An Edinburgh physi- 
cian records in his autobiography that some 
of the most remarkable cures in his life-long 
service were effected by bread pills. 

Dr. Clouston, the eminent Scotch physi- 
cian, says in his enlightening book on the 
" Hygiene of the Mind " : " Certain diseases 
of impaired nutrition, from warts up to in- 
ternal tumors, from scurvy to dropsy, have 
unquestionably been cured by mental influ- 
ences. This is perfectly explicable from 
what we know of the relation of the brain 
to the blood supply of the body. Through 
the vaso-motor brain function it can be shut 
off, or give an extra supply of blood to al- 
most any part of the body if the proper stim- 
ulus is applied, and thus cure diseases which 
are due to excess or too scanty supply of 



36 MENTAL MEDICINE 

blood to any particular part. Imagination, 
expectation, faith, joy, hope, fear, suggestion, 
may cure certain diseases." 

The record is given in the British Foreign 
Medical Review of a case reported by a 
naval surgeon as follows: A very intelli- 
gent officer had suffered for years from vio- 
lent attacks of cramps in the stomach. These 
attacks came on frequently and sub-nitrate 
of bismuth had been used with good results, 
but, notwithstanding that the dose was in- 
creased to the largest extent that its poison- 
ous qualities would justify, it lost its effect. 
He was then told that on the next week he 
would be put under the effect of a medicine 
which was generally believed to be almost in- 
fallible but which was rarely used because 
of its dangerous quality, but that notwith- 
standing these, it would be tried, provided 
he gave his consent. This he did willingly. 
Accordingly, on the first attack after this, a 
powder containing four grains was adminis- 
tered every seven minutes, while the great- 
est anxiety was expressed (within the hear- 
ing of the patient) lest too much should be 
given. The fourth dose caused an entire 
cessation of pain. Half drachm doses of 
bismuth had never produced the same relief 



POWERS OF MIND 37 

in three hours. Four times this remedy was 
used afterward with the same efficacious re- 
sults. The curative powder was nothing but 
ship-biscuit ground very fine. Such a spe- 
cial incident may be accounted for by the 
unusual stimulus of mental action under the 
thought of the strong drug being adminis- 
tered. 

Now, what in general is indicated by the 
various instances of well-known facts in the 
healing of disease through Indian medicine 
men, Roman shrines, popular superstitions, 
patent medicines, and various cults of faith- 
healing and Mrs. Eddy's method ? They may 
be said at least to indicate the wonderful 
power that mind often has over matter, some- 
times in the cause, sometimes in the cure of a 
disease. All these cure about the some per- 
centage — ten to fifteen per cent. 

All these various curative agencies are 
limited to a certain line of diseases, — chiefly 
nervous troubles in their various forms, which 
frequently simulate symptoms of heart 
trouble or consumption, as well as some func- 
tional complaints or irregularities of the cir- 
culatory system. Sometimes there are rumors 
and hearsays of the cure of all diseases under 
the sun, but it is exceedingly hard to find 



38 MENTAL MEDICINE 

thoroughly authenticated cases of the cure. of 
anything but nervous or hypochondriac 
troubles. 

One of the most interesting questions in 
our discussion, however, comes at this point. 
What is the secret of the psychic cure of dis- 
ease such as is manifested at times in all of 
these curative agencies? 

Three phases of phenomena seem to lead 
up to the secret of the whole matter. 

I. First, there is the healing power of 
Nature. It is acknowledged by the medical 
profession that fully ten per cent, of cases 
would get well if entirely left alone. Just 
call in Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet, and give Na- 
ture a chance. It is also acknowledged in 
nearly all diseases that good nursing is half 
the battle. Sir John Marshall, of London, 
said: "The vis medicatrix naturae (the 
healing, the recuperative power of Nature) is 
the agent to employ in the healing of an 
ulcer, in the union of a broken bone; the 
physician or surgeon only assists the natural 
processes of cure performed by the inherent 
conservative energy of the frame." And 
Dr. John Forbes said, in like manner : " In 
a large proportion of cases, the disease is 
cured by Nature and not by the physicians. 



POWERS OF MIND 39 

In a lesser, but still a large proportion, the 
disease is cured by Nature in spite of the 
physicians; in other words, their interference 
rather retards instead of assisting. And in a 
considerable proportion of diseases, it would 
fare as well or better with patients if all rem- 
edies, — at least all active remedies, especially 
drugs, — were abandoned. So it comes about 
that physicians themselves are using fewer 
drugs in their practice than formerly, and 
their chief work is merely to assist Nature, 
— to make conditions such as to give Nature 
a chance. 

2. Further, in all mere cures, there are 
the effects of ordinary mind force over 
bodily functions. This is shown in the ordi- 
nary experiences of our daily life. Our 
mental emotions of fright, for instance, or 
of worry and anxious solicitude, are regis- 
tered in the retardation of bodily function. 

" Where are you going? " asked an Orien- 
tal pilgrim of the Plague one day. " I am 
going to Bagdad to kill 5,000 people," was 
the reply. A few weeks later the pilgrim 
met the Plague returning. " You told me 
you were going to Bagdad to kill 5,000 
people," said he, " but instead you killed 
50,000." "No," said the Plague, "I only 



40 MENTAL MEDICINE 

killed 5,000 as I said I would. The others 
died of fright/' 

Dr. Robert Macdonald cites this incident. 

A volunteer in the recent Spanish- 
American war lay sick with typhoid fever in 
a Southern hospital. The physician passing 
through the ward on his tour of inspection 
noticed his weakened condition and said to 
the nurse in attendance, " That man can't 
live." The young man overheard the remark, 
and with what remaining strength he had 
cried out, " I will live ! " The physician's re- 
mark aroused his antagonism and impelled 
an auto-suggestion contradictory to the phy- 
sician's declaration. The determination to 
live started all the curative forces of his sub- 
conscious nature, and the ideal of life, " I 
will live," crowded out the expectation of 
death. He did live. 

3. Some fresh light on the subject is also 
furnished by recent laboratory work which 
shows that mental suggestion in some form 
is the third great factor in this phenomena. 

Our bodily tissue, as the scientists put it, 
is made up of cells, and in each cell is a 
nervous center, a minor seat of subconscious- 
ness, which may be called the mind of the 
cell. The subconsciousness is the part of us 



POWERS OF MIND 41 

to which we do not usually pay much atten- 
tion, but which carries on all the natural 
functions when we are not thinking about 
them, or when we are asleep. Disease is the 
lethargy of the subconsciousness in any series 
or section of cell-minds, retarding the usual 
functions ; and disease is cured by stimulating 
or vitalizing again these cell-minds. Now 
the special line of recent experiments is to 
ascertain the means of stimulating the cell- 
minds in the bodily tissue. It is found that 
what we call the curative power of drugs is 
merely the stimulating power and the direct- 
ing power which certain drugs have on cell- 
mind. And also, it is found that in certain 
instances, — not in all, but in some instances, 
the same stimulus and direction that drugs 
give to the cell-mind can be given by 
stimulated mental force from the mind-cen- 
ter, through mental ideas or images. 

This is fresh confirmation of an old truth, 
and helps to explain these cures that are 
effected by powdered biscuit, wooden mag- 
nets, Roman shrines, or Christian Science, in 
new stimulus through mental action. 

We might mention even more marvelous 
instances of the power of mind over body as 
shown in cases of mind in hypnotic control; 



42 MENTAL MEDICINE 

but these we shall reserve for a later ad- 
dress when the power of mental suggestion 
and the appeal to the subconscious self are 
considered. But we may state briefly that 
this recent research emphasizes as never be- 
fore that " the true physician is not a mere 
drug doctor; that his larger scope to-day in- 
volves, in the treatment of disease, not merely 
chemical forces in the body, but also psychic 
and ethical forces, which are operative in the 
body and as actual as any chemical agencies; 
that the study of the relation of mind and 
body is bringing new factors of health into 
view; that the new science of therapeutics 
will aim to treat where it is necessary, not 
a fraction of a man, but the integral man, 
and will incorporate into its diagnosis, in a 
larger and more scientific way (than ever, the 
psychic and ethical factors in the case; and 
that in the newer medical curriculum, mind 
as well as body are to be more largely studied, 
and psychology is to have its place with phy- 
siology." 

Hear this startling statement from Dr. 
Schofield : " The power of mind over the body 
has limits, but they have never yet been as- 
certained. All one can do to cure himself, 
the forces he can set in action, are as yet un- 



POWERS OF MIND 43 

known, but they are far greater than most 
people imagine." 

Nor is it the action of mere mind that we 
consider most important, although that must 
be trained and used along right lines. But 
it is the human mind when it is stimulated, 
strengthened, energized by the divine that is 
the most powerful agent in both moral and 
physical recovery. It is, as we shall later 
aim to show, mind reinforced by divine grace 
through faith and prayer that can accomplish 
the greatest results. 



III. THE SPIRITUAL MASTERY OF 
THE BODY 

^^[^^^^HE spiritual mastery of the body, 
m £*\ the force we call self-control, is 
WL 1 not merely equipoise and men- 

^^^ggay tal equilibrium, but the dominance 
of the whole life by its highest 
power. It is not a discussion of theories, but 
a vital, practical fight, an earnest everyday 
striving for results. It is the mastery of the 
body for health and happiness. 

How we love to see the dominance of mind 
in the world! How we love an invincible 
and dauntless spirit! How we admire even 
that pagan but courageous cry of the poet 
Henley : 

" I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul ! " 

We recognize the right of mind over body. 
It is both fundamental and natural. It is 
both reasonable and divine. Perhaps we 
ought to say, most divinely reasonable. For 
it is the right of the spiritual over the nat- 
44 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 45 

ural; the right of the eternal over the tran- 
sitory. This body in a few years will crumble 
into dust, but mind is immortal, — the spirit 
will live on forever. 

We need not discuss the definitions of mind 
or spirit, nor revive the old contentions 
between dichotomy and trichotomy, that is, 
whether we are body and mind merely, or 
body, mind and spirit. It will suffice for our 
present discussion to recognize the great dis- 
tinction between body and that incorporeal 
part of us, which is the seat of intelligence, 
emotions and will — call it what we may — 
mind, spirit, soul. 

When God said to man in the beginning, 
" Have dominion ! " he said it to man as the 
highest of all his creations. And when, in 
this highest creation, the command again goes 
forth, " Have dominion ! " it is surely to the 
highest part in man, — his mind, his soul, his 
divine spirit. 

We acknowledge the supremacy among 
human things of the human reason, the 
divine soul. We see constantly the great 
achievements of intelligence in the world. 
We see the marvelous products of mental 
efforts, — in works of invention, the accom- 
plishments of great purposes and construe- 



46 MENTAL MEDICINE 

tions, the achievements in literature, in 
science and art. We see the superb creations 
of human genius, — mind touched by the di- 
vine to its highest. 

It has been taken generally for granted that 
while the wondrous powers of mind worked 
through the body and that the body must be 
kept in good condition for their working, — 
yet the body itself was largely independent 
of these powers and was not amenable to 
them in its own special workings. So that if 
the body was sick, it must be treated from 
without by external remedies, or by extra- 
neous substances taken into the system. 

The conclusion, however, in these days is 
irresistible, that the mind has great influence 
over the body, both in health and sickness, 
in more wonderful ways than we have some- 
times dreamed. Some of this marvelous in- 
fluence we have already noted. 

Even more subtle than the mental influence 
on the bodily functions is the moral. This 
fact is coming into greater recognition as a 
scientific truth: the direct and intimate rela- 
tions between sin and sickness, and between 
sickness and sin. Sometimes, in hereditary 
and other cases, it is sickness that is the 
cause of sin. But in most cases, and either 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 47 

personally or by heredity, it is sin that pro- 
duces sickness. " Disorders of the body often 
flow from moral disorders ; sickness may be 
sometimes the direct precipitation of sin; dis- 
ease is sometimes merely the dregs of deprav- 
ity." Every case, of course, demands 
separate and careful diagnosis. Often it is 
the sins of the father or the grandfather 
visited upon the children. Sometimes it is sin 
against the laws of health in former genera- 
tions. But nearly always, in its last analysis, 
ill-health has a very close relation to sin. 

There is truth in what Matthew Arnold 
says in his book, " Literature and Dogma " : 
" Medical science has never gauged, — never, 
perhaps, enough set itself to gauge, the inti- 
mate connection between moral fault and dis- 
ease. To what extent, or in how many cases, 
what is called illness is due to moral springs 
having been used amiss, whether by being 
over-used, or by not being used sufficiently, 
we hardly know at all and we too little in- 
quire. Certainly, it is due to this very much 
more than we commonly think; and the more 
it is due to this, the more do moral thera- 
peutics rise in possibility and importance. 
The bringer of light and happiness, the 
calmer and pacifier and stimulator, is one of 



48 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the chiefest of doctors. Such a doctor was 
Jesus. Indications enough remain to show 
the line of the Master, His perceptions of the 
large part of moral cause in many kinds of 
disease and His method of addressing to this 
part His cure." 

A thoughtful young physician said not long 
ago to a Christian minister: "I am some- 
times disgusted with my work. I am ex- 
pected to cure a man of disorders and dis- 
eases which may be largely the result of his 
evil appetites and passions, and then, with- 
out touching his soul, leave him to return 
again to wallow in his evil. All that I am 
doing, as I see it, is to undo the stern les- 
sons whereby a man is taught, through suf- 
fering in the body, that he has sinned in the 
soul. I wish I could deliver him from the 
sin in his soul while I am delivering him 
from the suffering in his body." 

Perhaps he puts the case too strongly; and 
yet, is there not a real truth in the feeling 
back of his words? Ought not even the 
ordinary physician be so familiar with the 
laws of mind and soul that he could suggest 
the secret causes and prescribe rational 
methods for their treatment? Many phy- 
sicians are already doing this very thing with 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 49 

most helpful results. The inculcation, the 
inoculation of spiritual life, is a step higher 
than mental faith, and can be made most 
fruitful in therapeutic results. 

And we ministers, if I may speak a word 
for my own profession, hail every real 
student in science, and especially every well- 
educated medical man, as our ally and fellow- 
worker in bringing in the kingdom of spirit- 
ual sanity and wholeness. As one thinker 
has well put it : " The healing of the body 
and the healing of the soul are different as- 
pects of one and the same mystery of re- 
generation." 

The chief value and strength of this new 
thought is the emphasis that it places upon 
cheerfulness, hopefulness and a perpetual and 
persistent optimism. It believes in God, it 
believes in Christ the active ideal in all things 
divinest; it believes in the Holy Spirit of en- 
compassing love — and these are the great 
truths of life. It joyously emphasizes the 
health of God's countenance and what that 
belief may effect in the personal life. Many 
of us are persuaded that such a view will help 
to bring us all to a better frame of mind, to 
a healthier tone in religious life, to a more 
vigorous, a more militant faith in God and a 



50 MENTAL MEDICINE 

less passive acquiescence in sickness and sin. 
And, therefore, for our everyday and ordi- 
nary life, whether we are sick or well, we 
call upon you to consider such specific 
things as these that follow, for such things 
as these make better conditions, both mental 
and physical. They tone up the system, help 
to give Nature a chance, cordially co-operate 
with all the medical care and treatment that 
may be given to you. 

Thought-life is real life. " As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." Thoughts 
are deeds. Thought is potential in both spirit 
and body. 

What is referred to is the thinking that is 
the usual and habitual atmosphere of your 
mind. It means the thoughts which you con- 
stantly entertain, the thoughts in which you 
dwell, your habit of thought, your spirit of 
life, your views, your secret convictions and 
ambitions, your controlling ideals. These 
thoughts that take hold of a man's inmost 
life, and are the things that represent his own 
secret inner world — known only to himself 
and God. Such thoughts are you — your real 
vital self — the self that has the influence on 
your life and other lives. 

This is the tremendous truth — being is 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 51 

more important than doing. What you are is 
vastly more important than what you say or 
do. What you are is your thought, your 
affections — that whole inner, vital, palpitating 
life that is dominated by your mind. 

Therefore, you have the duty and respon- 
sibility of right mental habits. Many of the 
ills of life are due to wrong thinking, to evil 
mental habits, and to the careless allowance 
of unwholesome mental moods. Sometimes 
you may imagine that you may think w r hat 
you please if you do not allow the thoughts 
to escape into words or crystallize into deeds. 
But have you full liberty within the brain? 
Can you indulge yourself with impunity 
there? You do so at great peril. You can 
no more be careless of the inner life than 
of the outer. More careful must you be of 
the inner, for it is the source and fountain 
of the outer life. Therefore, be careful what 
sort of books you read, be careful as to your 
companions and associations. Beware of 
anything that breeds doubt, evil thoughts, 
ignoble desires and false ambitions. Cul- 
tivate everything that breeds nobleness in the 
soul. The Master holds us responsible in the 
spirit of our lives. These thoughts of ours 
are innocent or guilty before God. Your 



52 MENTAL MEDICINE 

thought counts, and counts vastly. Your 
thought is you. 

This is not merely important in a spiritual 
way — it is also vastly important in a physical 
way that we should be pure-minded and 
healthy-minded in our thinking. 

We are fully responsible for the thoughts 
we entertain. We are not responsible for the 
random thoughts that come flitting in and out, 
but the thoughts that we hold and dwell on. 
We are not always responsible for random 
thoughts, but we are for the thoughts we 
cherish. As a quaint old writer once said: 
" We cannot help the birds flying over our 
heads, but we can prevent them building nests 
in our hair." 

Paul recognized that we could control our 
thought. This is what that sacred teaching 
to the Philippians meant when it said: 
" Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are of good report: if there be any 
virtue, if there be any praise, think on these 
things." 

Further, you have the duty of asserting 
your potentialities. You are made for health 
and happiness. Never forget it. You were 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 53 

created as a child of God. Live up to your 
birthright. You are in God's thought and love 
a nobler being than you are living at present — 
you have a greater power than you are exer- 
cising, you can render a fuller service to 
yourself and humanity and God than you have 
as yet dreamed. The thoughts of your heart 
make the deeds of your life. Our thoughts 
do not end with the thinking. Thought is 
power, and has its issue in reality. Every 
thought leaves its impress within as without. 
Every thought leaves its indelible record 
within. " I am a part of all that I have 
met," Tennyson wrote in his Ulysses. And 
all that we have thought also becomes a part 
of us. Every evil thought degrades us and 
stains and scars the fiber of our soul. But 
every good thought is a new strength and 
blessing to the soul. A noble soul is built up 
of noble thoughts. 

There is no limit to the effect of good 
thinking, when it is backed by your will and 
crowned by the grace of God. Can it restore 
to health? It can, in many instances, and it 
can do greater things. 

You have the duty and responsibility of 
realizing that your spirit is made for con- 
quest, because it is in loving fellowship with 



54 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the divine spirit. We do not half realize our 
powers. When we are leagued with God, all 
things are possible. We can be more than 
conquerors, when we are leagued with God. 
By a covenant of consecration and faith, we 
are taking hold of the sources of omnipo- 
tence. 

Most marvelous work has been accom- 
plished in this world by those who in the 
power of God have lived their lives and have 
done their deeds. The supreme mind in this 
world is the mind of Christ. And yet — listen 
to this appeal : " Let this mind be in you 
which was also in Christ Jesus." These are 
audacious words, but they express a great 
truth and a living possibility. Something of 
that mind which was in Christ Jesus, you may 
have, if you ask God for it — so that you may 
think some of His great thoughts after Him. 
The mind of Jesus was purity, humility, 
nobility, divinity. The mind of Jesus was 
wise with a heavenly wisdom and warm with 
a divine love. 

Let a man think in the spirit of Jesus, let 
a man speak in the spirit of Jesus, let a man 
live in the spirit of Jesus and that man is a 
victor over the body. 

A man who has the ideal of Jesus dwelling 



SPIRITUAL MASTERY 55 

in his thoughts continually, will have there 
the inspiration of the noblest living. His 
thoughts cannot dwell in that atmosphere of 
goodness, without, by very contagion, becom- 
ing infected with divine ambition. His love 
can transform the heart; His ideals can in- 
spire the mind and life until we, beholding 
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, shall be 
gradually transformed into the same image, 
even from glory to glory. 

Such a mind, divine and dominant in us, 
will accomplish God's purpose in us and by 
us. It will undoubtedly help us in our fight 
for physical health and it will be conquering 
power in our fight for spiritual health. This 
gives the invincible spirit, this gives the note 
of absolute conquest in all things — the sense 
of eternal union with the love of God from 
which nothing can separate us. 



SECOND CONFERENCE 

The Therapeutic Value of Faith and Prayer 

I. Faith as a Vital Force. 
II. The Healing Value of Prayer. 



I. FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 



fi 



'AITH and prayer are often con- 
sidered merely as spiritual factors. 
We want to show in this address 
that they have also physical and 
therapeutic value. 
There is a great deal in that phrase that 
Tolstoi uses in one of his books — " Faith is 
the force of life." For, in fact, faith is more 
than spiritual imagination or spiritual com- 
prehension. It is a vital energy. It is not 
merely the power that relates the finite to the 
infinite, that bridges the gulf between the seen 
and the unseen, but it is a stimulus to all the 
latent faculties of life. It is as large and 
as real a factor in our lives as reason, or will, 
or the affections. It is a basal principle of 
life, and we ought to recognize it as such. 

Every modern physician uses more or less 
of faith in his practice. It is a necessary 
part of his work — as important as his drugs. 
He must inspire faith and confidence, in his 
patients; otherwise his service is not effect- 
59 



60 MENTAL MEDICINE 

ive. If a patient have faith in his doctor, 
the medicine does more good; in truth, if 
patient have strong faith in the doctor, the 
cure is sometimes effected without medicine. 
Some medicines and treatment, as given by- 
great physicians in whom people have faith, 
may have no effect when administered in the 
identical way by another physician who has 
no faith in himself and in whom his patient 
has no faith. 

All the various modern cults of healing — 
faith cure, mental healing, so-called Chris- 
tian Science, and the more recent Emmanuel 
Movement, emphasize faith, and rightly 
so, as a prime necessity in their work. 
Some, however, depend on faith entirely and 
in most illogical and undiscriminating ways; 
others, such as the Emmanuel Movement, in 
a more sensible and rational way. 

We may recall the historical fact that the 
early church continued for some time the 
apostolic work of healing, and its practice 
consisted largely of faith and prayer. It is 
an interesting chapter in the history of the 
church as recorded in fragmentary pages of 
early Christian literature. 

It is refreshing to find the modern church 
coming back again to a realization that it has 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 61 

a certain part, at least, in helping both the 
souls and bodies of men, and in understanding 
that its mission is not to disembodied spirits, 
but to the whole life in the body. 

We recognize that in material affairs, as in 
spiritual, the man with faith is the man who 
brings about results. " Faith/ 5 as one says, 
" is behind the great achievements of our 
modern life. Faith is the keystone of suc- 
cess. Without faith we do the work of life 
with lagging hearts. With it our powers are 
at their best. Chronic doubt kills effort and 
cripples its powers. But faith — not credulity, 
not rashness — but honest, constructive faith 
which realizes by action that ' assurance of 
things hoped for/ — such a force will carry us 
over mountains of difficulty and leave us fresh 
for the next climb/' 

Faith is thus a daily principle in busi- 
ness and in social life. We must have 
faith in our fellows to some large extent, or 
business stops, and social life becomes a 
mockery. Faith is also a principle which is 
used in science. We think of science as 
based on knowledge. So it is. It goes 
usually only as far as the five senses take it, 
and yet it believes further than it sees. It has 
never actually seen the essence of life, only 



62 MENTAL MEDICINE 

its manifestations in electricity or the other 
energies. But it has faith in these, so that the 
whole universe becomes intelligent and under- 
standable. 

Faith is, of course, a chief principle in re- 
ligion and it gives the basis of action there. 
Doubt paralyzes, but faith gives the vital 
touch of reality and is the means of progress 
toward all higher things. 

Now extend this same principle into the 
therapeutic field. As a matter of fact, it is 
being more and more recognized that in all 
mental and spiritual methods of dealing with 
disease, faith is a powerful factor. " After 
all," as Dr. Osier says, " faith is a great 
leveler of life. Without it, man can do noth- 
ing; with it, even with a fragment, as a grain 
of mustard seed, all things are possible to 
him. Faith in us, faith in our drugs and 
methods, is the great stock in trade of the 
profession. ... It is the aurum potabile, the 
touchstone of success in medicine. As Galen 
says, i Confidence and hope do more good 
than physic/ He cures most in whom most 
are confident." 

But in this special work it may be asked: 
What kind of faith is needed for the thera- 
peutic work? And we may answer that it is 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 63 

not a superstitious faith that is needed, noth- 
ing blind, arbitrary or unreasoning; nor a 
theological faith or creed. Indeed, people of 
widely different creeds, and of no creed, are 
equally helped in this movement. Nor is it 
a stultifying faith, believing without evidence 
and affirming belief of what, in your inmost 
soul, you are not persuaded. Instead it is a 
simple, reasonable, fundamental faith — an at- 
titude of life and soul which means rever- 
ence, willingness, obedience. That is enough 
to begin with, and it will increase. It means 
such a faith as this: 

1. Faith in God's love and His loving pur- 
pose towards us. For God is love, life, 
health. He wills health for us. He helps 
us to health, as far as we allow Him. He is 
opposed to pain and disease and abnormality, 
as He is opposed to vice and sin. 

2. Faith in the healing power of Nature 
(which is another name for God). Nature is 
always seeking to heal us. Take away the 
barriers; give Nature a chance and she will 
heal. 

3. Faith in ourselves when our wills and 
energies are stimulated, strengthened, and 
energized by God's grace. We must stir up 
the gift that is in us. The power is often 



64 MENTAL MEDICINE 

latent. It needs the stimulus of new exer- 
tion ; it needs re-education. 

Such a faith is deeper and larger than be- 
lief. Belief is accepting a thing by our rea- 
son. Faith is accepting by our whole life — 
involving consecration and obedience. Belief 
only needs the mind; faith needs mind, affec- 
tions, will, — the whole being. 

As a matter of fact, we do not need many 
definite beliefs for therapeutic help; but we 
do need this firm and abiding faith in God and 
His love, and His gracious purposes, and our 
own power of response to Him. 

A recent writer has said : " A great deal 
of alleged physical suffering is primarily men- 
tal. A great many people have * fixed ideas ' 
of disease, pain, debility, fatigue, dread, in- 
efficiency, and inexpressible woes. Much 
oftener than we realize, these can be trans- 
planted without surgery or medication. I do 
not mean that they are not real suffering. 
They are as real as the grave. But they are 
not grounded in physical infirmity, and they 
are not to be cured by physic. The mind be- 
comes possessed of a conviction that a certain 
part of the body is infirm, and imputes pain 
to that part in spite of all the medicine in the 
world. Hundreds of people refuse to get 

/ 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 65 

well after the physician has cured them. It 
is not his fault, and it is not their fault; they 
have simply had disease suggested to them 
until they cannot think at all except upon that 
assumption." * 

And for such conditions, the stimulus of 
a new faith, and the re-education of the whole 
mental outlook are needed. As Dr. Lewellys 
F. Barker says : " The patient afflicted with 
a so-called ' functional ' nervous disorder 
must, it is true, believe in his physician, but 
the physician's task is to re-educate the pa- 
tient to believe in himself. More than half 
the ills of one class of nervous patients de- 
pend upon a loss of confidence in their own 
ability, upon a sense of past failure and 
of future impotency. They have tried to 
do things outside their powers, and, hav- 
ing failed, have become convinced that they 
cannot in any way be efficient. Their minds 
are concentrated upon their failures and their 
disabilities instead of upon their successes. It 
is necessary to teach them how again to be- 
come confident and self-reliant; by assigning 
to them small tasks, well within their powers, 
and proving to them that they are capable of 
overcoming difficulty after difficulty. Many 

* Max Eastman in Atlantic Monthly, May, 1900. 



66 MENTAL MEDICINE 

may soon be taught to count victories where 
formerly every effort spelled defeat." * 

This is the interesting point. Modern 
science, as expressed in the fullest studies in 
physiology and psychology, also emphasizes 
this same need of faith. Physiology shows 
the wonderful power of faith in its action on 
the bodily functions and organs. Fear, for 
example, can distort and retard nerves and 
functions and upset the whole life. Faith 
can steady and stimulate and harmonize the 
whole life — the nerves and all the bodily func- 
tions. Psychology similarly in all its studies 
shows how faith can stimulate and transform 
mental moods and awaken latent energies. 

We see, therefore, that the principle that 
the Master used in His work, both in healing 
the body and in healing the soul — the funda- 
mental principle of faith as a prime necessity 
of healing, is the very one that it has been 
found necessary to use all through the cen- 
turies, whenever healing work has been done. 
The same thing holds true to-day. 

We see also the reason for it. The Master 
was using no arbitrary methods, but spiritual 
laws, divinely written by God in our very 

* Introd. to Prof. Oppenheim's Letters on Psycho- 
therapeutics. 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 67 

being. In order to accomplish similar results, 
we also must use these same laws, so far as 
we can, and come back to the very first prin- 
ciples of the method of the Master. We are 
getting to fundamental ground as we follow 
Him, who was and is the Great Physician 
of the Body and Soul. 

" Faith," as Bishop Fallows says, " is a 
dynamic power within the soul itself. It 
springs from the innermost nature. It can be 
reinforced and strengthened from without, 
but must ever originate from within. In the 
healing of the mind or body, the energy 
exerted by the patient himself upon himself 
is of the utmost importance. It must begin 
with the belief that he can be helped. He 
may say, ' I have no faith,' when he seeks 
relief, but the very fact that he seeks it is the 
clear indication that he has some faith. Ac- 
cording to the measure of his faith will be 
the corresponding good." 

Faith is essential. The patient cannot merely 
sit down and wait and be healed. In mental 
medicine, he has something to do, and a great 
deal. He must exert himself; he must have 
faith and obey. If a man would have 
help along these lines, he must give up the 
doubting mood, and come in the eager and 



68 MENTAL MEDICINE 

expectant mood, hoping for good. He must 
give up the critical mood, captious of every- 
thing that is said or done, and come in the 
hospitable mood, keeping mind and heart 
open. He must give up the selfish mood, 
thinking only of self and his troubles, and let 
his thoughts go out to others, sympathizing 
with them, and hoping and praying for them. 
He must stop thinking merely of the body, 
and come into thoughts of the soul, of the 
divine life, of God and His loving purposes. 

Christianity in the largest sense is health, 
spiritual, mental, physical. Holiness and 
wholesomeness are from the same roots in 
etymology and in divine sources. The words 
that John writes in his third epistle are sug- 
gestive : " Brethren, I desire above all things 
that thou shalt prosper, and be in health, 
even as thy soul prospereth." 

Men must be taught to exorcise and cast 
out the demons of fear, fret, weakness and 
worry. Such things are altogether evil and 
antagonistic to the best Christian life. Peo- 
ple must be taught not to give up to sickness 
but to resist it, just as they resist sin, and 
they must avoid temptations to sickness, as 
they would avoid temptations to sin. 

The church is beginning to protest against 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 69 

ailments forming the bulk of conversation 
when the subject of the weather gives out. 
The church ought to protest against the 
luxury of grief in which some indulge with 
loss of interest in life and neglect of duties. 

The church ought to protest against worry 
and fret. John Wesley wrote in one of his 
journals: " I would as soon curse and swear 
as worry. It is doubting God." We ought 
to have more of pure, strong, simple, brave 
Christianity, with apostolic joyousness and 
apostolic power! We ought to have the joy- 
ous early Christian mood of the disciples with 
our faces perpetually to the sunshine! 

What we need in our churches is a more 
virile belief and practice. There is a place 
for the passive virtues and for quiescent 
faith and for gentle acquiescence, but it must 
not predominate nor monopolize. Religion 
is in danger of being emasculated by resig- 
nation. We need more of the spirit of re- 
sistance, — resistance unto blood. We need 
a manlier type of thought. We need a 
sturdier emphasis on the stronger, more vig- 
orous, and healthier elements. The gos- 
pel is not weakness, but power; not sick- 
ness, but health; not weeping, but laughter 
and shoutings. We need to feel with Sidney 



70 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Lanier : " My Lord is large ; my Lord is 
strong." 

What is called "religious experience" has 
very close relations with the whole life, — 
spiritual, mental and physical. It is the pro- 
gressive awakening to the consciousness of 
God with us, of His wondrous power encom- 
passing us and uplifting us. There is a pro- 
found philosophy in it. It is the process by 
which a man gets a new point of view, new 
ideals, a new allegiance for the life. It takes 
us away from self, from- doubts, from 
symptoms. It puts before us an image of 
purity and power, of holiness and health. It 
calls us with all the love of our heart and all 
the strength of our soul to be like the Master 
ii> His life and spirit. It gives us a living 
ideal — God's own perfect ideal for us. The 
ideals that we create in our own minds may 
be weak, wrong, imperfect, inadequate. But 
here is the finest and noblest that human 
heart can conceive, and that divine love can 
offer. 

Here we are at the fountain head. We are 
at the source of life and strength. God 
created ; God can renew. We can become in- 
creasingly one with Him and it will mean 
infinitely to us, both in holiness and health. 



FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 71 

A serene spirit, a quiet heart, and a confident 
faith in God, are substantial helps to the 
preservation or restoration of that mental 
equipoise which must always come before 
physical equilibrium is assured. 



II. THE HEALING VALUE OF 
PRAYER 

^JJ^^HESE thoughts on faith, as a 
M (^\ vital force, lead naturally to a 
BL 1 consideration of an allied sub- 

^l^ ^ ggjy ject, — the therapeutic value of 
prayer. In his " Varieties of Re- 
ligious Experience," Professor James says: 
" As regards prayer for the sick, if any medi- 
cal fact can be considered to stand firm, it 
is that in certain environments, prayer may 
contribute to recovery, and should be encour- 
aged as a therapeutic measure." 

There are many to whom prayer in these 
days is a perplexity, rather than a joy and a 
strength. It is so often kept down on a low 
level as a mere business transaction between 
God and us, that all its deeper philosophy is 
left to seem unreasonable and its divinest 
meaning is made obscure. Yet prayer is the 
supreme experience in human life. We are 
indebted to science for clearing away much 
that is unreasonable in the modern thought of 
prayer, and also for reassuring us of the 
72 



VALUE OF PRAYER 73 

scientific facts and analogies of the seeming 
miracles that can be wrought by intelligence 
in ordinary life, and which point, as we shall 
show later, to a Supreme Intelligence that 
works in His universe, and gives us by a 
thousand manifestations the assurance that 
" more things are wrought by prayer, than 
this world dreams of." 

The greatest power of prayer, however, is 
not in its possible answers in the material 
realm, nor in awful times of special emergency. 
Its greatest power is in bringing us continu- 
ally into soothing and strengthening contact 
with the divine, that our wills may be brought 
into harmony with God, and that there may 
come into our souls new strength for accom- 
plishing God's work by our own heart and 
hands. Prayer is communion, privilege, com- 
panionship. 

There are many speculative difficulties in 
the subject of prayer, if we chose to consider 
them, and especially when we view prayer 
on its material side. It would seem as if the 
acceptance of natural law were full of ques- 
tionings and invincible arguments against the 
material response to prayer. But the phi- 
losophy of prayer cannot be discussed by mere 
logic-chopping. Prayer is the supremest ex- 



74 MENTAL MEDICINE 

perience in the human life ; it is " the stoop of 
the soul that upraises it, too " ; and its deep- 
est philosophy has never been fathomed, nor 
ever can be, by the scientific method or the 
logic of pure reason. 

We cannot restrict the possible power of 
prayer, even in the way of material response. 
It may help us on this point to remember 
that this universe is not a machine, set in 
motion under fixed laws and left to itself. 
There is a supreme living personality in this 
world, — God in His world, working out His 
purposes toward " one far-off divine event 
to which the whole creation moves," — and 
what we call natural laws, are merely His 
customary modes of action. He is not a 
prisoner in the chains of His own laws; He 
is supreme even in natural laws. And a 
supreme intelligence, if it will, can so use 
these laws as to bring about results that of 
themselves would not occur. And He does. 

You have noticed sometimes what effect 
mere human intelligence has in so using 
natural laws to bring about new results. 
Electricity, for instance, is a natural agent 
under natural laws, and in itself is useless, 
or means lightning and destruction. But man 
modifies these natural forces, he adapts them 



VALUE OF PRAYER 75 

to a purpose, and the electricity serves him 
and does his bidding over land and under 
seas. It runs to the farthest parts of earth 
with his messages. " In forty minutes, it 
circles the globe/' It lights his streets, it 
drives his engines, it even cures his diseases. 
Man has not changed a single natural law, 
but by adapting these forces under these laws, 
he has made them serve a new purpose. Can- 
not God do this, as man has done, and even 
on a larger scale? 

Ordinary sunlight, to give another illus- 
tration, has its natural laws, and man cannot 
change them. But he can so modify and use 
them, that what sunlight would not do with- 
out the cunning mind of man, now it will do, 
and will paint for him lifelike pictures in 
black and white, and even in colors. Has 
a miracle been wrought by the process 
of photography? No natural law has been 
changed, but intelligence has so controlled 
natural law that a new purpose has been 
wrought and a new thing accomplished. 

Perchance you may wake in the morn- 
ing with a sore throat. You have been care- 
less or negligent, and have caught cold, and 
natural law is at work. If nothing is done, 
natural law may take its course, and the 



76 MENTAL MEDICINE 

cold may develop into something worse. But 
immediately you set about to modify the nat- 
ural process of law by bringing into opera- 
tion other natural laws. You apply counter- 
irritants or other remedies, and before the 
day is over intelligent action has conquered 
and the disease has been averted. Natural 
law has been used in new ways by other nat- 
ural laws through human intelligence and 
action. Cannot Divine Intelligence do the 
same and greater? And in these ways, God 
does work. 

If we did not understand these everyday 
things that we mention, we might call them 
miraculous, but since we understand them, we 
say it is intelligence at work. May it not 
be that results which we may call miraculous 
are wrought for us by God merely through 
the infinite and all-wise action of a Supreme 
Intelligence, — and results that, without prayer, 
might not have come to pass ? 

In all these things, let us remember that no 
prayer is answered unless the man who prays 
works with God toward its answer. That 
petition that we pray every day, " Give us 
this day our daily bread," amounts to nothing 
if the man prays it and sits down to eat with 
folded arms. If the prayer means anything, 



VALUE OF PRAYER 77 

it means that the man is willing to work with 
God to effect the answer. 

Prayer must not in the least be allowed to 
take the place of human effort and respon- 
sibility. If a great battle is at stake, we must 
pray earnestly to the God of Battles, but keep 
our powder dry. If our house is on fire, we 
must not kneel down and pray, but pray as 
we run with the water-buckets. If we want 
a good harvest, we must pray, but be sure of 
our grain and the right sowing-time. If we 
want business success, we must pray, but also 
work with all our might. God has not given 
us the privilege of prayer in order to cut the 
nerve of effort or to put a premium on in- 
dolence. Therefore, in the same way, if we 
pray for health, we must use every sensible 
and legitimate method to secure it, and we 
must be willing to fulfill the conditions and 
laws of health, so far as we know, or our 
prayer is not a true prayer. 

Another thing must be considered. No 
prayer is answered by what we call miracle, 
where natural means and natural laws are 
sufficient for the answer. God respects the 
eternal laws that He has made — His own 
best ways — and He will not controvert them. 
It is futile to expect it. But times may occur 



78 MENTAL MEDICINE 

in the divine economy of the ages, 
when prayer is answered by what seems to 
us a miracle, although it is but the natural law 
of God. But the notion in some minds that 
God is all the time playing fast and loose 
with His own laws in order to gratify the 
prayers of His children seems presumptuous 
and preposterous. 

Would we have it, forsooth, that, for our 
own wish or convenience or the working 
out of our plans, God should reverse His 
laws ? True it is, as we said, that God knows 
His own laws — that He can modify at Hisi 
wisdom everything but the essential ethical 
laws of His own being. But is it not the 
more reasonable to suppose that in most 
cases prayer merely brings about new results 
through these same laws of God, and leads 
us unto fuller harmony with God, fuller 
obedience to His laws, and hence conquest 
in them. No natural law is controverted 
under ordinary circumstances in answer to 
prayer. But natural law is used by divine 
intelligence, or we are so inspired, as to effect 
new results. 

In a word, then, while we may hold that 
no prayer changes any law of God, or nat- 
ural law, nor alters God's will — we also hold 



VALUE OF PRAYER 79 

that every honest prayer is answered, and 
that every honest prayer has in it not only 
longing and desire, but a willingness to 
work with God toward the answer of the 
prayer. 

Thus far, however, we have been consider- 
ing what we may call the ordinary or the 
lower aspects of prayer. They are important, 
and we have dwelt on them in some measure 
in order to bring into contrast the higher 
meaning of prayer. This greatest power of 
prayer is the power that it has of bringing us 
continually into such soothing and strengthen- 
ing contact with the divine that our wills are 
brought into harmony with God, and there 
comes into our souls new strength for accom- 
plishing God's work by our own hearts and 
hands. In this fact is also found the special 
and greatest therapeutic value of prayer, as 
we come into this higher meaning — beyond 
petition into communion. 

As an eminent writer has put it : " Prayer 
has a regenerating and uplifting effect on 
character; but in affecting character it must 
also affect the nervous system. It does not 
seem irrational to believe that prayer opens 
the inner consciousness to the absorption of 
spiritual energy. This attitude of receptivity 



80 MENTAL MEDICINE 

toward the higher things in turn affects life 
and character and the calmed and purified 
spirit acts on the nervous organization, re- 
storing its tone and rhythm." 

Now in all our thought of prayer, remem- 
ber that we stand to God, not externally, 
not as distantly calling some far-ofif Being. 
" It is not," as one says, " like calling up a 
person by a long-distance 'phone and then 
waiting for material gifts." But we must re- 
member that in God we live and move and 
have our being — " we are organically related 
to God, we exist in Him spiritually as 
thoughts exist in our minds." And when we 
pray sincerely and earnestly, our prayer arises 
to God as a thought arises in our minds. 
Such a thought sometimes takes possession 
of us. So real prayer may take possession 
of us. A real prayer may also take possession 
of God and bring blessing. 

Tennyson saw this higher meaning of 
prayer when he said : " Prayer is like open- 
ing a sluice between the great ocean and our 
little channels when the great sea gathers it- 
self together and flows in at full tide." 

It is often the case that those nervously 
afflicted cannot put their prayer into words. 
They cannot command their thoughts or 



VALUE OF PRAYER 81 

words as they wish. For these, it is most 
helpful oftentimes, if they follow a form of 
prayer, — simple, definite, uplifting. 

But it is not always necessary that prayer 
should be in words. Just the attitude of 
communion and trust is often the most help- 
ful and uplifting. It is the prayer of silence 
and trust. It is just going into a quiet spot 
and waiting on God. It is the way of the 
Mystics, the Quietists, the Friends. But it is 
a good way. As the Scriptures say : " Be 
still and know that I am God." 

" One of the most beautiful forms of auto- 
suggestion/' as Bishop Fallows points out, " is 
prayer. Not that auto-suggestion is the 
whole of prayer. It is rather our prepara- 
tion for the effects of prayer. Through its 
use we push away for a time from our- 
selves the engrossing preoccupation that shuts 
out higher interests, we open, as it were, a 
hidden door in our consciousness through 
which come new life and power and energy 
from God." 

Such a practice as this — silent waiting be- 
for God for half an hour a day in the quiet — 
relaxed, passive, but with the windows of 
the soul open, will be oftentimes most help- 
ful to the nervous sufferer. It helps to pro- 



82 MENTAL MEDICINE 

duce that quiet and serenity of spirit that is 
most desired. It opens in some mystic but 
real way, an actual connection between the 
soul and uplifting spiritual forces. Prayer, 
in this way, passively and without words, but 
full of thanksgiving and trust in God, brings 
new strength and help. 

Prayer before sleep has distinct therapeu- 
tic value. The mechanism of sleep is un- 
known, but it is more than the cessation 
of consciousness. Many beneficial physical 
changes take place during sleep. Waste is 
repaired ; functions reorganized. Often a ten 
minute nap is a tonic and a medicine, better 
than food or drink; renewing the mental and 
physical life. Sleep is largely a matter of 
suggestion, inhibition and control. Very im- 
portant upon sleep and dreams and the deep- 
est life are the last thoughts before going 
to sleep at night. Here is the value of 
prayer, when used just before sleeping. It 
is a scientific, physical help as well as spirit- 
ual. 

" The fundamental religious point," as a 
noted psychologist says, " is that in prayer 
spiritual energy, which would otherwise 
slumber, does become active, and spiritual 
work of some kind is really effected. This 



VALUE OF PRAYER 83 

means, not only that prayer makes us better 
men and women, but that the spiritual energy 
which it brings may be translated into acts 
which give us more force as working beings, 
more power of achievement, more influence 
in the social order." 

The therapeutic value of prayer may thus 
be considered as resting fundamentally in 
these facts: 

1. Prayer brings the mind into a quiet and 
trustful attitude, and this reacts on the body. 

2. Prayer is the continually hopeful spirit 
and this helps physical condition. 

3. Prayer stimulates us to help ourselves 
to co-operate in the answer to prayer. 

4. Prayer is sometimes directly answered 
in physical healing. 

5. Prayer unites the human forces to the 
divine forces. 

6. Prayer is the opening of the sluices of 
the soul for the divine inflowing. 

7. Prayer is the atmosphere in which the 
divine Spirit of life lives and works. 

In view of all this, it were folly to tell 
people that it is their duty to pray. Duty 
is too cold a word. Privilege and glory are 
the only words to connect with prayer. It 
is possible, however, that, through the first 



84 MENTAL MEDICINE 

impulse of duty, a way may be made into the 
sanctuary of privilege. 

Those who know what prayer means find 
in it joyous companionship in solitude; it 
means genial sympathy in the recoil from the 
coldness of life; it means the delicious satis- 
faction of thought and feeling in the loving 
closeness of a living presence. More than 
that, prayer means the uplifting of the heart 
and mind into a higher atmosphere, into the 
living communion with the divine life and 
love. 

A remarkable declaration and confirmation 
of this position concerning the value of 
prayer as a means to mental health, is that of 
Dr. Murray Hyslop, physician superintendent 
of the Royal Hospitals, Bridewell and 
Bethlehem, in London : " As an alienist and 
one whose whole life has been concerned with 
the sufferings of the human mind/' he says, 
" I would state that of all the hygienic meas- 
ures to counteract disturbed sleep, depression 
of spirits, and all the miserable sequels of a 
distressed mind, I would undoubtedly give 
the first place to the simple habit of prayer. 
Let there be but a habit of nightly com- 
munion, not as a mendicant, nor repeater of 
words, but as an humble individual who sub- 



VALUE OF PRAYER 85 

merges or asserts his individuality as an in- 
tegral part of a greater whole. Such a 
habit does more to cleanse the spirit and 
strengthen the soul to overcome mere inci- 
dental emotionalism than any other therapeu- 
tic agent known to me." 

One who has found the secret of prayer, 
one who has learned its solace, its richness of 
joy, its hidden fountains of strength — be- 
lieves in prayer, rejoices in prayer, al- 
though he cannot see that a single one of his 
prayers ever receives an answer in a tan- 
gible form. He has risen far above 
that aspect of prayer. He does not limit or 
measure the divine by his own human desires 
or expectations. He believes and knows 
that every one of his prayers is answered, be- 
cause he believes in God and knows an in- 
finitely loving, wise Good Heart, even the 
Heart of God. That Heart, he is sure, hears 
him and loves him and will do whatsoever is 
best for him. 

One has aptly put it : " Perhaps we are 
like wireless stations, each tuned to the vi- 
brations that individualize us, with God the 
Almighty Center holding the key for every 
human being. . . . Our connection with God, 
the source of all life, is never broken, it is 



86 MENTAL MEDICINE 

true; but prayer is the live current which 
makes that connection efficient. Without 
prayer, we are isolated, as it were, at the end 
of a dead wire. The universe itself is, to 
the devout mind, founded upon prayer, that 
is, on the principle of dependence, which is 
the fundamental note of prayer. Science and 
psychology concur in such a view. The 
world we live in, great as it seems to us, is 
as a grain of sand to the bulk of a vast 
mountain when compared to the numberless 
orbs that revolve through the million miles 
of space. But law and order govern the 
whole. Part is dependent upon part. We 
seem to ourselves, perhaps, isolated and self- 
contained. Yet I lift my hand, I make the 
slightest motion, and the clearest-headed 
thinker in the world of science tells me that 
the very movement of my fingers sends its 
vibrations to the farthest star, for hundreds 
of millions, or billions or quadrillions or sex- 
tillions of miles. Distance makes no differ- 
ence. There can be no motion in one part 
without motion being in some way felt in 
another." * 

Such is the power of prayer, — a real thing 
in life, a real force in this universe. 

* Bishop Samuel Fallows, in Health and Happi- 
ness, 1908. 



THIRD CONFERENCE 

Possibilities in the Control of Subconscious- 
ness 

I. Glimpses of the Subconscious Self. 
II. The Training of the Hidden 
Energies. 



I. GLIMPSES OF THE SUBCON- 
SCIOUS SELF 

OR. OLIVER WENDELL 
HOLMES makes the observa- 
tion : " We all have a double, 
who is wiser and better than we 
are, and who puts thoughts into 
our heads, and words into our mouths. Do 
we not all commune with our own hearts 
upon our beds? Do we not all divide our- 
selves, and go as buffets on questions of 
right or wrong, of wisdom or folly? Who 
or what is it that resolves the stately parlia- 
ment of the day, with all its forms and con- 
ventionalities and pretences, and the great 
Me presiding, into the committee of the 
whole, with Conscience in the chair, that 
holds its solemn session through the watches 
of the night?"* 

Of course, the first question in our consid- 
eration of this subject is, What is the subcon- 
scious self? We may answer by asking some 
other question. What is it that carries on all 

* Mechanism in Thought and Morals, 1869. 

89 



90 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the functions of life while we are unconscious 
of their action? We go to sleep, and our 
inner life goes on perfectly, the beating of the 
heart, the circulation of the blood, the diges- 
tion, the breathing of the lungs. We are put 
to sleep by chloroform or ether, or by hypno- 
tism. The inner life still continues its subtle 
workings. Perhaps some slight modifications 
may be noted, due to the anaesthetic, but the 
great functions go on uninterruptedly. We 
are injured in some way. We may be un- 
conscious, yet the inner powers begin immedi- 
ately to retrieve the injury. An innumerable 
army of tiny healers begin their work in our 
bodies. Who sets them to work? 

What is the inner power that is used, for 
instance, when habit becomes second nature? 
When we learn our music so that we can 
talk or think independently as we play; or 
learn to carry on at the same time two sep- 
arate lines of thought ? What gives the power 
to some untaught mathematical genius, or to 
the musical prodigy known as Blind Tom? 

What is the inner power that takes note of 
time and things, even when we are uncon- 
scious? We want to wake at a certain time 
— we have it on our minds, and we wake at 
the very hour. It is not the working of our 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 91 

conscious mind, for that is asleep. Is there 
a mind that never sleeps ? 

Various fire-alarms sound in the fire sta- 
tion. But the firemen so accustom them- 
selves that they hear only their own special 
alarm. What is it that listens for this special 
alarm, and discriminates between this and 
the others? 

What is the inner power of inspiration that 
brings forth great poems, music and other 
works of creation? These things seem to 
flow from our inner being. 

What is the strange gift of unconscious 
cerebration ? We have a problem ; we leave 
it for awhile. Then, meantime, it somehow 
clears up. Or we have a subject to think 
over ; we give it a week in our mind, with no 
particular conscious thought. Then we take 
it up and find that a great mass of related 
subjects have accumulated around it. 

Where is the depository of memory? For, 
as a matter of fact, we remember everything 
that we have learned. We remember it, but 
we cannot always recall it. But special times 
or emergencies show it that it is all there, 
somewhere, in unconsciousness. 

This classic instance is told by Coleridge: 
A German servant girl about twenty-five. 



92 MENTAL MEDICINE 

years old was taken ill with fever, and in 
her delirium, she cited long passages in 
Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Scholars were 
called in to hear this miracle. But later the 
marvel was explained. Years before she had 
lived in a minister's family. He was ac- 
customed to recite his classics out loud. She 
had heard them; unconsciously it was all re- 
corded. Memory never forgets an impres- 
sion. 

Confessions of those who have been almost 
drowned confirm the same phenomena. The 
whole life comes up before them in an in- 
stant — all its long-forgotten details. Mem- 
ory's tablets are ineffaceable. Neverthe- 
less two-thirds, if not seven-eighths, of these 
records are in the unconscious regions of 
mind. 

These instances at least prove the existence 
of the region of the unconscious, and they 
suggest its remarkable possibilities, such as 
the dual self, and the triple or multiple per- 
sonality and its problems. 

The usual nomenclature of the conscious 
and the unconscious self is merely a conven- 
ient one, not strictly scientific. Psychology and 
even medical science are not all agreed as to 
terms. Some hold to the phrase " dissociation 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 93 

of consciousness " as more accurate. The 
general position of psychology holds to the 
unity of mind, although we may designate the 
two regions of the mind by different names. 
Prof. William James of Harvard, one of our 
leading psychologists, contends for the phrase 
" the unconscious mind " and what it repre- 
sents. The name however is varied by dif- 
ferent writers and is almost interchangeably 
called unconscious mind, subconscious mind, 
subjective mind, or subliminal self. Even these 
terms may each be differentiated. We shall 
use in this address that generally accepted 
term " the subconscious self," which Dr. 
Waldstein uses in his famous treatise on the 
subject. 

It is interesting to recall that brilliant ad- 
dress of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, on 
" Mechanism in Thought and Morals," deliv- 
ered at Harvard just forty years ago, in 
which he asks the question : " Do we ever 
think without knowing that we are think- 
ing? The question may be disguised so as 
to look a little less paradoxical. Are there 
any mental processes of which we are un- 
conscious at the time, but which we recognize 
as having taken place by finding certain re- 
sults in our minds? That there are such un- 



94 MENTAL MEDICINE 

conscious mental actions is laid down in the 
strongest terms by Leibnitz, whose doctrine 
reverses the axiom of Descartes into ' sum, 
ergo cogito.' The existence of unconscious 
thought is maintained by him in terms we 
might fairly call audacious, and illustrated by 
some of the most striking facts bearing upon 
it. The ' insensible perceptions/ he says, 
are as important in pneumatology as cor- 
puscles are in physics. i It does not follow/ 
he says again, 'that, because we do not per- 
ceive thought, it does not exist/ Something 
goes on in the mind which answers to the 
circulation of the blood and all the internal 
movements of the viscera. In one word, it 
is a great source of error to believe that there 
are no perceptions in the mind but those of 
which it is conscious/' 

He adds : " This is surely a sufficiently 
explicit and peremptory statement of the doc- 
trine, which, under the names of ' latent con- 
sciousness/ ' obscure perceptions/ ■ the hidden 
soul/ ' unconscious cerebration/ ' reflex action 
of the brain/ has been of late years emerging 
into general recognition in treatises of psy* 
chology." Now these word9 Of Dr. Holmes' 
were written forty years ago. There is noth- 
ing new under the sun. 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 95 

Some have assumed as a working hypoth- 
sis " that man possesses two minds, the 
subjective mind being, according to this 
view, the soul. But mind is one. All the 
phenomena connected with various so-called 
personalities in the same individual have been 
ultimately resolved into the one indivisible, 
normal self." Wundt, the founder of experi- 
mental psychology and the leader of the 
" new psychology," has announced his con- 
viction of " the indivisible unity and inner 
oneness of the mental life in all its phases." 

The unity of the mind, Dr. Alfred T. 
Schofield, of London, maintains, is a truth 
as needful to lay hold of as the unity of the 
body. Professor William James agrees with 
him when he says : " As the action of the 
mental factor in disease is unconscious, it 
cannot be recognized as mental by those who 
limit mind to consciousness. The word mind 
must, therefore, be extended to include all 
psychic action. Almost all the action of the 
mind upon the body as a factor in disease 
or in therapeutics is exercised subconsciously, 
automatically, and — perhaps often of neces- 
sity — unconsciously." 

Now the fact of the subconscious self re- 
minds us that there is a region of the unknown 



96 MENTAL MEDICINE 

in mind and in religion, and in all life. We 
cannot escape from mystery in mind or reli- 
gion or in medicine. A religion without its 
profound secrets is no religion; for it is not 
true. A science that has discovered all will 
never be known. Nor is mind to be excepted 
from the region of the unconscious or un- 
fathomable. 

Nevertheless there have already been cer- 
tain things learned about this subconscious 
self that are most interesting and important. 
Some of these facts have been discovered con- 
cerning the subconscious mind by the careful 
and scientific investigators of the region of 
the subconscious by means of hypnotic con- 
dition. Such condition is often used to ad- 
vantage in medical work. 

A few words concerning this method may 
not be amiss in explaining its relation to the 
general subject of rational psychotherapy, 
which is our chief consideration. 

Physicians in these days are studying and 
working along these lines with fruitful re- 
sults. One of the clearest statements of this 
is in Dr. Albert Moll's work on " Hypno- 
tism " in the chapter on Medical Aspects of 
Hypnotism. He says, to quote two or three 
brief paragraphs : " I think that hardly any 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 97 

of the newest discoveries are so important to 
the art of healing, apart from surgery, as the 
study of mental or hypnotic suggestion. . . . 
Suggestion will not again disappear from the 
foreground in medicine. . . . Suggestion will 
not supplant other methods of healing, but 
complete them. Now that it has been proved 
that organic changes can be caused by sug- 
gestion, we are obliged to ascribe a much 
greater importance to mental influences than 
we have hitherto done; . . . Suggestion is 
not only the key to the origin and aggrava- 
tion of certain maladies, it also in some meas- 
ure explains the working of drugs. ... If 
medicines have different effects, when pre- 
scribed by different doctors, we shall not find 
the cause of this in chemical differences; we 
should rather ask if the manner of the pre- 
scription, the impression made by the doctor, 
and other mental factors, have not had some 
effect ?" 

The theory that hypnotism is due to a 
magnetic fluid is exploded. The theory that 
hypnotism is only possible in case of weak 
or diseased nerves is also discarded. We 
have learned that hypnotism is possible in 
healthy and normal subjects; that the hyp- 
notic sleep differs only in cause and degree 



98 MENTAL MEDICINE 

from the normal sleep, and that its greatest 
value is the influence on subconsciousness or 
subjective mind by the process of mental 
suggestion, a process which has more or less 
of permanent effect. 

So that we can understand something 
further of what Dr. Moll means in his work 
on Hypnotism, when he says : " We have al- 
ready seen what Bernheim and Liebault 
think, that hypnotism means suggestion, and 
suggestion is truly the chief agent in it. 
Bernheim's definition of hypnotism makes 
its therapeutic value more comprehensible. 
He believes that hypnosis is a particular men- 
tal state, in which susceptibility to suggestion 
is heightened. It follows from this that sus- 
ceptibility exists apart from hypnosis ; one is 
the natural complement of the other. . . . 
The therapeutics of suggestion/' he contin- 
ues, " are founded on the premise that a num- 
ber of diseases can be cured or relieved 
merely by making the patient believe he will 
soon be better, and by firmly implanting this 
conviction in his mind. ... If suggestion is 
to succeed, the patient must firmly believe 
that he is to be cured. ... I should think it 
right, in certain cases, to send patients to 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 99 

some miracle-working spot. That Charcot 
was convinced of the healing power of faith 
is well known. It cannot be denied that faith 
and emotional excitement produce many re- 
sults at Lourdes." 

It is interesting to find in the recent treatise 
by Dr. Louis Waldstein, of New York, on 
" The Subconscious Self," many careful con- 
clusions which are particularly pertinent in 
this connection. For instance, he says : " All 
the phenomena of so-called hypnotism can be 
referred to suggestion. The hypnotic con- 
dition, as well as what happens during its 
continuance, is suggested. With this step, 
the inquiry ceases to be confined to abnor- 
mal and ultra-critical regions, and thereby 
enters the domain of the ordinary processes 
of mental activity, and so brings the subject 
within a more easily obtainable reach. The 
hypnotic condition, hence, is a phase of the 
mind differing only in degree from the nor- 
mal. . . ." And again, and this is most im- 
portant: "In many cases, it is not neces- 
sary to induce hypnotic sleep in order to in* 
flnence subconscious conditions. For in- 
stance, I am sure that suggestions methodic- 
ally made before ordinary sleep would act 



ioo MENTAL MEDICINE 

quite as well as if made during hypnosis, and 
much good would result from a careful elab- 
oration of such a method of treatment." 

So also Dr. Halleck in his treatise on " The 
Education of the Central Nervous System," 
writes : " The highest medical authorities 
agree that mental attention strongly directed 
to any part of the body will produce physi- 
cal change. If the attention is centered on 
the stomach, the digestion will suffer; if on 
the liver,- that will become deranged. The 
vascularity of bodily organs and the caliber 
of the blood vessels can thus be made to 
undergo a change. In short, the physical re- 
sults of mental attention are strongly 
marked." 

To summarize briefly: The modern in- 
vestigations of physiological psychology, what 
may be called the laboratory work of the 
science, are showing us in hitherto un- 
suspected ways the wonderful action of men- 
tal forces in the region of the subconscious- 
ness, and how such hidden action may be 
influenced and directed by the outward 
stimuli of active drugs, or by the subtle power 
of the new mental energies, exerted through 
silent telepathic communications, or through 
the effective reiterations of auto-suggestions. 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 101 

These same investigations are showing us 
that this subconsciousness is the most sensi- 
tive recorder of outer influences and is per- 
fectly responsive to the central nervous sys- 
tem of the body. It must, therefore, be a 
vastly important fact in the health, holiness 
and happiness of a man's life. For whatever 
seriously affects it, affects the very springs 
of life. It is no small thing, therefore, to 
infuse and saturate the subconsciousness with 
the atmosphere and ideality of health and 
strength. It means a new tonic quality sent 
out into all the nerves of being. It means a 
new lease on life. Such a discovery reveals 
the possibility of most fascinating studies in 
" the abyssmal depths of personality " and re- 
veals also the possibility of mentally infus- 
ing into that region new vitality for the re- 
generative and constructive forces of life. It 
is the recognition that mind — even subcon- 
scious mind — plays a larger part than we 
have sometimes imagined, in the maladies and 
the remedies of the medical world. We all 
know how an ill man is kept in that condition 
when he is continually told that he looks badly. 
Many a sick person has been made 
worse by the unwise comments of his friends. 
The Job's comforters are responsible for 



102 MENTAL MEDICINE 

much aggravated distress in this world. But 
we all know how the encouragement of the 
nurse and the doctor means oftentimes as 
much as the medicine. We are also fa- 
miliar with the value of a change of scene 
or a change of thought in certain nervous 
troubles. Oftentimes this is all that is needed 
to dispossess the demon of habitual depres- 
sion. And the pleasurable novelty of travel, 
with its new acquaintances and new scenes, 
its absolute diversion and varied interests, is 
oftentimes the real purpose in the prescrip- 
tions to drink the waters of Carlsbad or try 
the air of the Riviera. 

The subtle but scientific instillation of the 
suggestion and promise of health is perfectly 
legitimate. It replaces the lethargy of de- 
pression by a new buoyancy of spirit. It 
sends the current of a new vitalization 
tingling along the nerves. 

Investigations, very numerous and thorough 
in scientific circles in these days, have taught 
us a few definite things about the subcon- 
scious self, although much is yet unknown. 
The few definite probabilities about the sub- 
conscious self seem to be such as follows: 

I. The subconscious self seems to be a 
normal part of our nature. It fs not morbid 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 103 

or uncanny in its nature or development. 
It was largely unknown and unstudied until 
recent years. Yet what we have already 
learned, shows it to be one of the most inter- 
esting parts of our being. 

2. It does not seem to reason, but to obey 
and follow. It would seem possible, there- 
fore, that it can largely be controlled. We 
had not realized this until recently. It seems 
to be governed primarily, not by reason, but 
by instincts and intuitions and commands. 
These are given, some at birth — the natal 
instincts ; some by unconscious training and 
habit from earliest infancy and all through 
life; and some by conscious training along 
the line of the great principles, and the laws 
of life and action. 

3. It seems, as some assert, to be purer, 
more native, simple and elemental than our 
conscious self — and less allied to evil and less 
susceptible to it. Some investigators cite a 
large number of experiments to prove this 
proposition. It seems to them conclusive that 
even in hypnotic suggestion, the subcon- 
scious mind will not respond to a distinctly 
evil suggestion or a suggestion of crime. 
Upon this point, scientists still differ. 

4. The subconscious self seems to have 



io 4 MENTAL MEDICINE 

great reserves, which can be used in emer- 
gency. For instance, a mother may have to 
stay up night and day with her little one. 
Strength is given to do it. She can keep 
awake for much longer intervals when neces- 
sary. Or, perhaps, a man rs suddenly put 
under heavy responsibility, and the new de- 
mands may be wonderfully met. Webster is 
called upon in the Senate to reply to Hayne. 
He calls his powers together. He makes 
the greatest speech of his life. He says: 
" All that I had ever thought or dreamed 
on the subject came before me saying, ' Take 
me ! use me!"' 

5. The subconscious mind to many inves- 
tigators seems to be more clearly allied to 
the divine Spirit in the seeming fact that 
it never sleeps; that it often performs its 
highest functions when the objective senses 
are in abeyance; that it is infinite in its 
reaches. It seems to be the shores of a 
boundless ocean. Some believe it is in closer 
contact with the Universal Spirit than rea- 
son. On the other hand, Dr. Richard C 
Cabot says: "It has been stated that the 
subconscious life is our point of contact with 
God and with the spiritual world in general. 
It does not seem to me that there is any 



SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 105 

clear grounds for this belief. It is not ob- 
vious from examples which I have analyzed." 
Nevertheless, on this point physicians and 
metaphysicians may long disagree. It is a 
matter difficult of proof. But many of us feel 
that both conscious and unconscious mind 
is nearer to the great Central and Univer- 
sal Mind than we have sometimes realized or 
imagined. 



II. THE TRAINING OF THE HIDDEN 
ENERGIES 

^4^^^HE relation of the conscious to the 
m (^\ subconscious mind may be crudely 
t|L 1 illustrated in this way. A great 

^^^ipggr ocean steamer has its captain and 
pilot up above, observing and rea- 
soning, directing the vessel. Down below 
are the engineer and the stokers, and also the 
great engines, all obeying orders. So in our 
life. The conscious mind is above — the cap- 
tain, the pilot, observing, reasoning, direct- 
ing the vessel. The subconscious mind is 
the engineer, the stokers and the great en- 
gines themselves, following directions and 
furnishing the great power. 

Now the question comes, in what particu- 
lar ways may the subconscious self be influ- 
enced for health? This is a vital and impor- 
tant consideration. We may note, however, as 
a preface to our answer. The reason and 
memory, the conscious mind, seem to act 
through the brain ; while the unconscious mind 
seems to act largely, not by the brain, but 
106 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 107 

through the whole body by the entire nervous 
system, the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic 
system, ganglia, glands, etc., in all the various 
parts of the body. This theory, if correct, 
would account for the very important part 
that unconscious mind plays in all bodily 
functions. 

Further, we need not seek to control the 
subconscious mind too minutely. Many 
things we do better by instinct than if we 
stop to reason about them. It is jocularly 
said that if the thousand-legger once stopped 
to reason which foot he should put forward 
first, he would never move an inch. So of 
our own deep and instinctive life. Much of 
it ought not to be interfered with. Much 
goes on better without our thought. 

Therefore, all that we can wisely do is 
merely to affirm great truths and inspiring 
ideas; to live in their high and broad vision; 
to make them the atmosphere of our life — 
and then let the subconscious self work them 
out as it will. 

We come now to our more definite answer. 
We said that the subconscious self seemed to 
be governed primarily by instinct and intui- 
tion. But it can also be governed and con- 
trolled to a large extent by the exercise of 



108 MENTAL MEDICINE 

definite methods which are now being clearly 
recognized by modern psychology and physi- 
ology. 

One method is by the stimulus of mental 
suggestion when we are wide awake. This 
process is concentration upon a certain idea 
or ideas until they become dominant in the 
thinking and life. Mental suggestion is the 
process and power of a new idea to stimu- 
late and dominate the life. That is the mat- 
ter in a sentence. The process of suggestion 
is described and discussed in many pages and 
chapters in our latest psychologies — its why 
and wherefore and modus operandi. Sug- 
gestion has been used to a greater or less 
extent in all medical work from time imme- 
morial, but is beginning to be used to-day 
more systematically, both in ordinary practice 
and in all processes of psychotherapy. It is 
also the secret of all the various cults of mind 
and faith cure. 

Mental suggestion is also constantly used 
in daily life. We govern our children often- 
times by mental suggestion. When a mother 
takes her little babe and croons over it a 
soft lullaby with such words as * Sleep, my 
baby, sleep," that is mental suggestion. 
A child has bumped its head. Mother kisses 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 109 

the bump and says : " Now, it is well." And 
it is well very soon. A child is talking and 
thinking along wrong lines. The mother in- 
geniously suggests another more interesting 
subject and changes the current of the child's 
thoughts. That is mental suggestion. A task 
is to be done. It looks like hard work. But 
by a few words we throw an imaginary 
glamor around the task, — " Let's play so and 
so, let's make believe/' and how easily the 
task is done! That is mental suggestion. 

We use the same process to some extent 
with adults. The ways are a little more in- 
genious and mature. Not merely words, but 
physical objects, can give the needed sug- 
gestion. Perfumes, an ornament, a certain 
position in an easy chair, a comfortable church 
pew may be all that is needed. Wives who 
are wise govern their husbands by love and 
mental suggestion. Lawyers use it as much as 
argument with a jury. Salesmen use it in 
persuading customers. There are even busi- 
ness schools where they teach it as a fine 
art most successfully. Many ministers use 
it consciously or unconsciously in their work, 
pulpit and pastoral The most successful evan- 
gelists are those who by so-called personal 
magnetism can plant right mental suggestion 



no MENTAL MEDICINE 

in their hearers and thus move them to right 
life. Why should not the same thing be used 
to make better health conditions? 

Systematic suggestion can be effectively 
used in the work of improving health. Many 
people are in such a condition that the thing 
they most need is the power of a new and 
stimulating idea. In many cases drugs or 
surgery are not required. But they do need 
a new outlook, a mental and spiritual stimulus. 
This will have its physical effect. It will 
stimulate and reinforce and re-energize the 
whole system. It will help to a better cir- 
culation, more active functions, a steadier 
heart, better control of nerves. 

Now, this is not theory. Dr. Paul Du- 
Bois, the famous French physician, gives a 
remarkable list of cases in his book on " The 
Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders/' 
More recently, in the Emmanuel Movement 
in Boston, along the same lines, many cures 
have been wrought by the simple and daily 
use of mental suggestion. 

As we mentioned at the beginning, hypnotic 
suggestion is sometimes used in medical prac- 
tice. So much, however, can be done by sim- 
ple mental suggestion in the open, and along 
natural and normal lines, that this method is 



HIDDEN ENERGIES in 

by far much the best for general use, leaving 
all other forms of suggestion to medical prac- 
tice. 

Mental suggestion, let me repeat, is the 
process and power of injecting into the mind 
a new and stimulating idea; and to be most 
helpful this must be done systematically, and 
under such conditions as will allow the idea 
to become a real part of the life, and active 
and dominant in it. Or to put it in a more 
scientific way, we may use the phraseology of 
an eminent medical investigator of psychic 
phenomena, Forel, who speaks of suggestion 
as a " psychic (•". e., mental) or more prop- 
erly, psycho-physical, reaction, in which an 
idea usually connected with perception be- 
comes so intense and narrow, the mind be- 
comes so filled with ' one idea ' that this idea 
loses its ordinary associations with its cor- 
rective counter-ideas, breaks violently through 
common restrictions, and releases cerebral 
activities that are usually independent of it 
and generally, if not always, subconscious." * 

In suggestion, a dominating idea is pre- 
sented to the mind by someone who wills 
to influence. In auto-suggestion, or sugges- 
tion to oneself, the process is all from within, 

* Forel — Hypnotism and Psychotherapy. 



H2 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the idea being repeated, reiterated, emphasized, 
until it penetrates the subconscious mind and 
tends to form a new habit, and give new 
stimulus. 

" Auto-suggestion must be persistent and 
systematic," says one who has had much ex- 
perience. " This is well to remember in any 
formal attempt to use such a method of self- 
help. Although auto-suggestion can be used 
at any time, the best time is when body and 
mind are relaxed. Auto-suggestion made just 
before retiring, or on waking in the morning, 
when the conscious part of our mind is inac- 
tive and the way to the subconscious part is 
clearer, or at some hour during the day when 
a few minutes rest can be taken in an easy 
chair or on the bed, seems to be particularly 
effective." 

As a most practical series of ideal mental 
suggestions, for many classes of people, a 
book by Henry Wood of Boston called, " Ideal 
Suggestion through Mental Photography/' 
can be heartily recommended. It is a most 
helpful and stimulating book along this line. 
One need not endorse everything the author 
says. But the substance of it is thoroughly 
sound, both psychologically and physiologic- 
ally. He gives practical directions for the 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 113 

use of mental suggestion for real help toward 
health, both of soul and body. Such a definite 
and practical system of inspiring and uplift- 
ing mental suggestion cannot help becoming a 
splendid reinforcement in the life. I have 
known many who have used this very sys- 
tem with excellent results. 

Notice, in all this, that scientific mental sug- 
gestion is thinking to a purpose. It differs 
from ordinary suggestion, fugitive ideas of 
suggestion, in being systematic and continual. 
It is mental suggestion as a definite work and 
purpose. 

It is also sometimes most helpful if a for- 
mula of suggestion is used, as a " creative 
assertion," in Dr. Cabot's phrase, to be re- 
peated over and over again, say every hour 
or two hours a day for a week or two weeks. 
This affirmation, or it may be a prayer, is made 
in simple language by one who understands 
the matter, and varies for each case to be met. 

What is one really doing when he makes a 
" creative assertion " to a patient, or even 
a patient to himself? Let Dr. Cabot answer: 
" He is not trying merely to state facts ; he 
is trying to improve facts, and he is mighty 
sure that he can do it. He would be false 
to his duty, he says, if he tried to take the 



114 MENTAL MEDICINE 

coldly scientific point of view, and to state 
precisely what he thinks is going to happen 
in the presence of a person already suffi- 
ciently burdened with the weight of disease. 
For no one knows exactly what is going to 
happen ; and, in fact, what is going to happen 
depends more or less upon how much courage 
you succeed in infusing into the sufferer be- 
fore you. It is not a case for looking on 
and describing what you see; it is a case for 
doing things, for wrestling with fate and 
scoring to win.'' * 

This we must emphasize. The very first 
condition for most people, if they would main- 
tain, restore or keep their health, is to live 
ixi a healthful mental atmosphere. This is 
one of the most important things we have 
to learn. Our thinking, our daily thinking, 
must be done along lines which are whole- 
some and aspiring and uplifting. And it 
must, just as far as possible, ignore and in- 
hibit thought of disease and diseased condi- 
tions. 

Besides the wide-awake mental suggestion, 
a further method for influencing the subcon- 
sciousness is by the stimulus of mental sug- 
gestion just before sleep. Dr. Waldstein, of 

* Psychotherapy magazine, Vol. I., No. 2. 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 115 

New York, assures us of the effectiveness of 
this practical method. Dr. Worcester has told 
of numerous cures by this method, especially 
in the case of little children who were relieved 
of stammering and many bad habits of child- 
hood. 

A third method for controlling subcon- 
scious action, is the stimulus of mental sug- 
gestion during hypnotic sleep. But this should 
be used only under most careful medical su- 
pervision and only in extreme cases. Many 
practitioners with whom hypnotism once 
found favor have in many instances discon- 
tinued it. In the opinion of many eminent 
physicians, hypnotism is coming to have a 
limited field of usefulness in this work. For a 
restricted class of cases in the hands of ex- 
pert men these physicians consider it beneficial. 
But medical opinion seems to be swinging over 
to the view that in many cases results which 
were once supposed to be possible only through 
hypnotism can be obtained quite as well by 
waking suggestions w T ith the co-operation of 
the patient, without risking any of the pos- 
sible dangers attending hypnotism. Dr. Du- 
Bois has shown most strikingly the value of 
mental therapeutics in waking suggestion. 
For instance, he says : " I have shown that 



n6 MENTAL MEDICINE 

in this influence (persuasive or educational 
suggestion) exercised on the patients afflicted 
with the various functional troubles of the 
digestive apparatus or the heart, or the res- 
piratory system, there is always an element 
of suggestion. To arouse in the patient the 
conviction of cure is the fundamental indi- 
cation. It is impossible for me always to 
keep the patient from reaching this convic- 
tion by blind faith, but the fault, if fault 
there be, must be imputed to the subject. 
Personally I take care that my statements 
are rationally founded; I transmit to the pa- 
tient only such convictions as are based on 
my psychological or physiological views. I 
try to make the patient follow the same paths, 
to explain and to make him understand as 
clearly as possible, the influence of mental 
representations on organic functions. " * 

In general, it may be said that the educa- 
tional method is among the most valuable 
of all psychotherapeutic measures. " This 
method contemplates teaching the patient what 
he has, what he has not, what he seems to 
have, what he can do, what he cannot do, and 
what he simply believes he cannot do." This 

* Dr. Paul DuBois — The Psychic Treatment of 
Nervous Disorders. 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 117 

expresses briefly what might be much elab- 
orated. 

In the educational method, by first separat- 
ing the false from the true, the real from the 
imaginary, the inevitable from the merely ha- 
bitual, the patient becomes enlightened as to 
the real nature of his own case. He obtains 
this enlightenment " through frequent confer- 
ences with the physician, who talks to him 
somewhat as a physician talks to his colleague 
in a consultation, the method of the physician 
and consultant being modified in accordance 
w T ith the lack of knowledge which the patient 
has of the anatomy and physiology necessary 
to a scientific understanding of the subject. 
The physician, so to speak, popularizes for 
his patient the knowledge which he possesses 
and which another physician would compre- 
hend without the necessity of such populari- 
zation. Understanding his own symptoms and 
being led to a full belief in the possibility of 
their removal, the patient advances more easily 
along the path to recovery." 

Another method of helping to control the 
subconscious mind is by establishing good 
habits. The subconscious mind seems to be 
largely a creature of habit. Now thought is 
a habit, as well as any part of our action. 



n8 MENTAL MEDICINE 

If we learn to think rightly, learn to think 
on wholesome subjects, learn to think along 
the lines of health, learn to banish morbid and 
unwholesome subjects; in a word, if we learn 
to think along the lines of health, and make 
a habit of these things, we will wonderfully 
stimulate and direct the subconsciousness. 

A fifth method of controlling subconscious 
mind for good is by the exercise of a 
determined will. These unconscious powers 
seem to respond to will-power most wonder- 
fully. When a patient determines to be well 
and keep well, he will do wonders. We must 
not let our wills get flabby ; nor be easily dis- 
couraged ; nor give up after one trial, or five 
trials or a dozen trials. When we see the 
truth, we must hold steadily to it. When we 
map out a good course to follow, we must 
follow it. The subconsciousness rejoices to 
obey a masterly will — as much as a thorough- 
bred horse to obey the master. 

In all these processes for the control of the 
subconscious self^ we cannot emphasize too 
strongly the value of two things — concentra- 
tion and repetition. 

Concentration means continued and persis- 
tent thought along certain fixed ideas. Per- 
haps only one idea at first, but concentrate 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 119 

upon it — hold it steadily before the mind, look 
at it from different points of vision. Concen- 
trate upon it until you absorb it — until it be- 
comes a part of you. 

In this process, repetition is also most valu- 
able. Repeat over and over again, at stated 
intervals, day after day. Thus we give depth 
to the impression. Eternal vigilance is the 
price of liberty. 

We must remember, in regard to this sub- 
conscious self, that we are just learning to 
use its powers. A hundred years ago, we had 
just as much electricity in earth and air as 
we have to-day. But we did not know how to 
use it. Now we do know how, and how mar- 
velously we are using the power of electricity 
to-day! So with these powers of subcon- 
sciousness. We are beginning to understand 
and use them. We are just on the brink of 
further and fuller developments. But what 
we already know we must use in order to 
come to greater things. 

These subconscious powers are largely 
latent forces. Many of us are using only a 
half or a third of our real equipment. We 
can call out the reserves of life — in these 
emergencies of depression or ill-health. We 
can release the pent-up energies for our bet- 



120 MENTAL MEDICINE 

tering or restoration. Says Prof. James in a 
notable essay on " The Energies of Man " : 
" Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with 
a sort of cloud weighing upon us, below our 
highest notch of cleverness in discernment, 
sureness in reasoning, or fairness in deciding. 
We are making use of only a small part of 
our possible mental and physical resources. 
In some persons this sense of being cut off 
from their rightful resources is extreme, and 
we get the formidable neurasthenic condi- 
tions." Prof. James goes on to show in this 
essay, how levels of new energy, which have 
long remained unutilized, may be set to work 
by these various methods of mental sugges- 
tion, such as we have endeavored to indicate. 
Now in all this what is the chief part of 
religion? Much of the work of the control 
of the energies of the life can be done either 
with or without religion. But religion, by 
faith and prayer and by the affirmation of 
its great and inspiring and uplifting truths, 
can furnish the strongest possible stimulus 
in mental action. It can also supply the 
background of hope and assurance of the 
divine presence and purpose that in itself 
is of real benefit to both soul and body. Still 
further, the type of character created by true 



HIDDEN ENERGIES 121 

religion is the best type to resist disease — that 
is, the character in which the features are 
calmness, faith, patience, fearlessness, trust- 
fulness, endurance, hopefulness, cheerfulness. 
This is the true type of true religion. This 
same type of character is the best resource 
for the restoration of health. Every one of 
these mental and spiritual characteristics re- 
acts most helpfully on all the bodily functions 
and life. 

What we must chiefly endeavor to do in all 
this is to make conditions of self-control more 
wholesome and normal. It is to come into 
fuller harmony with divine law — the laws 
both for the body and the soul. It is to come 
into such a spirit, by faith and prayer and 
obedience to truth, that our lives will eagerly 
welcome more of the great universal spirit of 
divine health and strength. 

For this new life, energy, love — the power 
of health and happiness — is the infinite 
power. Its highest description is in the apos- 
tle's words : " For it is God that worketh 
in you, both to will and to do of His good 
pleasure." 



FOURTH CONFERENCE 

Some Elements in Morbid Moods 

I. The Casting Out of Fear. 
II. The Control of the Imagination. 
III. The Cause and Cure of the Worry- 
Habit. 



I. THE CASTING OUT OF FEAR. 

^^ M ^ HAT are the morbid moods as 
H ^fc ordinarily considered ? Are they 
W W not too much self-retrospection; 

^^^^^r an ^over-conscientiousness; an 
ultra-sensitiveness, or mistrust of 
self, or suspicion of oneself, or of others; a 
sense of inferiority, or constant self-deprecia- 
tion and depression; the pathological state of 
mind — a morbid curiosity and interest in dis- 
ease and diseased condition ; or a constant 
bondage to fear, such as fear of failure, fear 
of sickness, fear of death? The perpetually 
discouraged life is a form of morbidity. The 
moods of cynicism and pessimism are essen- 
tially morbid moods ; for they do not look at 
life healthily; nor do they give out healthful 
influences. These, in general, are the chief 
forms of the morbid moods, and some of the 
forms at least that we consider in this ad- 
dress. 

Morbid moods are no new ailments. The 
patriarch Job was in one when he was so de- 
pressed that he bewailed the day of his birth. 
125 



126 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Elijah under the juniper tree is another in- 
stance ; David, when he cried " Why art thou 
cast "down, O my soul ? " ; Solomon, when he 
felt — "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." 
And the same infection has come at times 
to modern spirits — even to the gifted ones of 
earth. Let me quote from several: 

Goethe says : " I will say nothing against 
the course of my existence. But at bottom it 
has been nothing but pain and burden, and I 
can affirm that during the whole of my 
seventy-five years I have not had four weeks 
of genuine well-being. It is but the per- 
petual rolling of a rock that must be raised 
up again forever." 

Luther wrote : "I am utterly weary of 
life." The Electress Dowager one day when 
Luther was dining with her, said to him: 
" Doctor, I hope you may live forty years to 
come." " Madam," he replied, " rather than 
live forty years more, I would give up my 
chance of Paradise." 

Bunyan's experience, as he wrote it, was 
this : " I was both a burthen and a terror 
to myself; nor did I ever so know as, now, 
what it was to be weary of my life, and yet 
afraid to die. How gladly would I have been 
anything but myself ! " 



CASTING OUT FEAR 127 

Concerning one period of his life, Tolstoi 
wrote : " I felt that something had broken 
within me on which my life had always rested ; 
that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that 
morally my life had stopped. ... I did not 
know what I wanted. I was afraid of life. 
I was driven to leave it: and in spite of that 
I still hoped something from it. My 
state of mind was as if some wicked and 
stupid jest was being played on me by some 
one. One can live only so long as one is 
intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one 
grows sober, one cannot fail to see that it is 
all a stupid cheat. What is truest about it 
is that there is nothing funny or silly in it; it 
is cruel and stupid, purely and simply. . . . 
But perhaps (I often said to myself) 'there 
may be something I have failed to notice or 
to comprehend.' It is not possible that this 
condition of despair should be natural to man- 
kind. And I sought for an explanation in all 
the branches of knowledge acquired by man. 
I questioned painfully and protractedly and 
with no idle curiosity. I sought, not with 
indolence, but laboriously and obstinately for 
days and nights together. I sought like a man 
who is lost and seeks to save himself — and I 
found nothing. I became convinced, more- 



128 MENTAL MEDICINE 

over, that all those who before me had sought 
for an answer in the sciences have also found 
nothing. And not only this, but that they 
have recognized that the very thing which 
was leading me to despair — the meaningless 
absurdity of life — is the only incontestable 
knowledge accessible to man." 

To those who are interested in a very de- 
tailed history and description of these moods,- 
I would recommend Prof. James' most in- 
teresting book on " The Varieties of Religious 
Experience," and especially the chapters on 
"The Sick Soul," and "The Religion of 
Healthy-mindedness." 

At this time, however, let us consider three 
chief classes of morbid moods which are es- 
pecially prevalent. 

The first group are the morbid moods of 
fear. 

From childhood on, many are afflicted with 
morbid fears. There is a long series of mor- 
bid anticipations, as Horatio W. Dresser 
points out in his " Voices of Freedom," 
namely, " that we shall suffer certain chil- 
dren's diseases, diseases of middle life and 
of old age; the thought that we shall grow 
old, lose our faculties, and again become 
childish; while crowning all, is the fear of 



CASTING OUT FEAR 129 

death. Then there is a long line of particu- 
lar fears and trouble-bearing expectations, 
such, for example, as ideas associated with 
certain articles of food, the dread of the east 
wind, the terrors of hot weather, the aches 
and pains associated with cold weather, the 
fear of catching cold if one sits in a draught, 
the coming of hay-fever upon the 14th of 
August in the middle of the day, or some 
similar date, and so on, through a long list 
of fears, dreads, worriments, anxieties, an- 
ticipations expectations, pessimisms, morbid- 
ities, and the whole ghostly train of fateful 
shapes, worthy to rank with Bradley's ' un- 
earthly ballet of bloodless categories/ 

"Yet this is not all. This vast array is 
swelled by innumerable volunteers from daily 
life, the fear of accident, the possibility of 
calamity, the loss of property, the chance of 
robbery, of fire, or the outbreak of war. 
And it is not deemed sufficient to fear for our- 
selves. When a friend is taken ill, we must 
forthwith fear the worst and apprehend death. 
If one meets with sorrow . . . sympathy 
seems to enter into and increase the suffer- 
ing." 

So also Horace Fletcher says in one of his 
books — " Happiness as Found in Forethought, 



130 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Versus Fearthought," — " Fear has had its uses 
in the evolutionary process, and seems to con- 
stitute the whole of forethought in most ani- 
mals; but that it should remain any part of 
the mental equipment of human civilized life 
is an absurdity. I find that the fear element 
of forethought is not stimulating to those 
more civilized persons to whom duty and at- 
traction are the natural motives, but is weak- 
ening and deterrent. As soon as it becomes 
unnecessary, fear becomes a positive deterrent, 
and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh 
is removed from living tissue." 

" Man often has fear stamped upon him be- 
fore his entrance into the outer world," adds 
Mr. Henry Wood in one of his treatises. 
" He is reared in fear ; all his life is passed in 
bondage to fear of disease and death, and 
thus his whole mentality becomes cramped, 
limited, and depressed, and his body follows 
its shrunken pattern and specification. . . . 
Think of the millions of sensitive and re- 
sponsible souls among our ancestors who have 
been under the dominion of such perpetual 
nightmare ! Is it not surprising that health 
exists at all? Nothing but the boundless di- 
vine love, exuberance, and vitality, constantly 
poured in, even though unconsciously to us, 



CASTING OUT FEAR 131 

could in some degree neutralize such an ocean 
of morbidity." 

Now what are the causes of these morbid 
moods? They are various, but we may men- 
tion the principal ones. The cause of course 
may be physical — some organic trouble — 
some diseased condition, or possibly only a 
slight derangement. It may be climacteric 
condition, when the internal system of our life 
is undergoing a serious readjustment, such as 
oftenest happens at the age of puberty, or 
at twenty, forty or sixty years of age. Or, 
it may be nervous exhaustion, overwork, or 
over-worry, or wrong habits of life. Or bad 
hygiene — such as results in indigestion, a 
torpid liver and other derangements. Another 
cause may be a too delicate constitution. Some 
may be too sensitively built. The tough-fibered 
do not usually have these moods or troubles. 
Still another cause may be the inability 
to meet the real troubles of life — the actual 
failures, sickness and losses of property or 
loved ones. Or the cause may be wrong 
mental habits — the point of view mentally 
false or inadequate. Or the cause may be 
the unregenerate nature. The need of a new 
birth spiritually — a new frontage toward man, 
the universe and God. 



132 MENTAL MEDICINE 

What is the cure of morbid moods? I 
need not remind you that there is no one cure. 
But there are various cures, according to the 
nature and cause of the disease, and the treat- 
ment needed is often a combination of both 
physical and mental and spiritual. 

Mental treatment may help to make better 
conditions for further work, although when 
an organic trouble is the cause, the initial 
and necessary treatment must be conducted by 
regular medical or surgical care. The phys- 
ical trouble must be righted first of all. You 
all know that if the cause is nervous exhaus- 
tion, as it is in many cases, the first thing is 
to build up the nervous system again by rest- 
cure, by frequent feeding, and by psychic 
treatment. If the cause is climacteric condi- 
tion, the best cure is to be as patient as one 
can — a change of scenery when possible, and 
as much light and wise amusement as can be 
given. When the cause is bad digestion, the 
best cure probably is to learn to eat whole- 
some food and to masticate thoroughly. 
When the cause is the liver, more outdoor ex- 
ercise is needed, more fresh air. It is true 
that bad hygiene, bad air, and lack of ex- 
ercise are responsible for many morbid moods. 
If the cause of the morbid moods be a deli- 



CASTING OUT FEAR 133 

cate constitution and a sensitive nature, we 
must use all reasonable means to build up 
physical strength and to harden ultra-sensi- 
tiveness. And when wrong mental habits are 
the cause, there must come a re-education of 
the mind into right thinking and a persistent 
exercise of the will-power along right lines. 

These directions may be suggestive and 
helpful. We may say to these afflicted ones : 
Seek cheerful society. There is nothing bet- 
ter than the company of little children and of 
cheerful, healthy people. Take up some 
wholesome reading — avoid all else. Read a 
funny paper. Keep to the cheerful side of the 
Bible. If the cause is lack of spiritual vision, 
the sense of sin and the oppression of fate, 
then what is needed is a new spiritual ex- 
perience in the life, bringing a new vision 
and trust in God. 

We may say, in a word, that fear is the 
negative and abnormal condition of the inner 
life. Love is the normal, the divine equipoise. 
The process of the casting out of fear is the 
process of expelling an intruder and of bring- 
ing the life again into its natural, right, and 
wholesome condition. It is the very law of 
physics : " Two bodies cannot occupy the 
same space at the same time." As one comes 



134 MENTAL MEDICINE 

in, the other must go out. The heart at the 
start may be full of fear. Trust or love be- 
gins to come in. Fear is pushed out. And 
when the heart is full of trust, there is no 
place left for fear. For these are mutually 
exclusive. Perfect love means the heart full 
of love, the heart in which fear has no place. 

Some of you can remember, as I do for 
myself, when your life was lived con- 
tinually under fear. You feared ghosts 
and evil spirits; you feared disease; 
you feared failure; you dreaded God. You 
feared death ; a thousand fears had possession 
of your life. But many of these fears you 
have conquered. It is a gradual process, but 
it may go on. 

We can drive out fear by a new mental 
and spiritual outlook — a supreme confidence 
in God. We must say to ourselves — " We 
must not fear; we will not fear." 

As Dr. Richard Cabot says : " What such 
persons need above all is to cultivate 
their inner resources, to strengthen their 
powers of defense against the discourage- 
ment, the anxiety, the depression which 
may flow into them as the result of whatever 
disagreeable or threatening events they meet. 
Nervous people are prone to take the color 



CASTING OUT FEAR 135 

of their surroundings ; they are oversensitive 
to the buffets and shocks of life. They need, 
above all, the power to resist, to shut out, to 
turn away from the compelling assertions of 
their environment, whether that environment 
be a commanding person, or a murky day, or 
a pain." * 

The surgeon must be fearless ; his hand must 
not tremble in the operation. That would be 
fatal. He must have confidence in himself 
and his work. The artist must not fear, else 
his trembling strokes will damage all his 
work. He must work only in faith and con- 
fidence in his skill. 

So we in our life and work must not fear. 
We must go forward confidently with faith 
in ourselves and God. We are put here for 
work. No cringing, no trembling, but earnest 
and brave service. Perfect trust is that full, 
and frank communion by which we realize 
that the Father is with us. Perfect trust is 
the day's bravery in the fellowship of the di- 
vine. Perfect trust is the conquest of fear 
through the absorbing consciousness of God. 

There is something splendid when a man 
walks the ways of life and does strong deeds, 
without the least particle of fear in his soul, 

* Psychotherapy magazine, Vol. L, No. 1. 



136 MENTAL MEDICINE 

serene and strong in his faith in God ; daunt- 
less and deathless in his grasp on life and 
eternity; free and fearless in all his spiritual 
doings and explorations; standing up in the 
dignity of the spiritual manhood that God 
has given him. 



II. THE CONTROL OF THE IMAGI- 
NATION 

^JBfcli J ^^ second class of morbid moods 
m t^\ which we are to consider at this 
gji 1 time, are the morbid moods of a 

^^^^^r diseased imagination. 

Imagination is a real factor in 
every one of our lives. We may not have the 
genius of imagination, but we have imagina- 
tion. We dream of the future, and imagine 
what will be. We are constantly using im- 
agination. We may use it prosaically or 
poetically; we may use it ignobly or beauti- 
fully; we may use it wholesomely or disas- 
trously. 

Do we often enough consider this fact : the 
world of imagination in every one of us has 
its sins and its sanctities ? " The sins of the 
imagination " is a subject not often treated and 
yet it is a most important and vital one. The 
imagination has a close relation to deeds. 
Every sin in the life is first committed in the 
imagination. 

i37 



138 MENTAL MEDICINE 

We hear of some one gone wrong. We 
cannot think how it happened. For that per- 
son had been well-brought up, always ap- 
peared respectable, always seemed most nor- 
mal. But the secret is here. It was, in a 
sense, a double life. Outwardly it was moral, 
as far as deeds go; but inwardly, and in 
the imagination, it was immoral. A great 
tree in the forest sometimes seems perfectly 
sound. But a blow at its trunk pulverizes it. 
It is rotten within. An insect has eaten out 
its heart and strength. The same thing may 
happen in a life. 

A physician recently called attention to this 
matter in the following words : " Books are 
mainly silent on the subject of the diseased 
imagination. Fathers and mothers shrink 
from talking to their children about these 
things. Yet an impure word, a doubtful jest, 
a tale of wickedness is drunk in by these 
children, and excites the imagination and often 
does untold injury. In the realm of the im- 
agination there is an enchanted middle ground 
between virtue and vice in which many a soul 
lives and feeds in secret. To them it seems 
to be harmless and without the pale of actual 
sin. There is no intention to sin, but only to 
filch the pleasure of imagination. But it is a 



CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 139 

sin. The willing secret indulgence of the im- 
agination is a gross evil, and one of the most 
dangerous of practices/' * 

There is more ignoble use of the imagina- 
tion than we sometimes think or confess. 
Many who would scorn the actual sin, indulge 
their imaginations viciously; they think in 
the freest, most irresponsible way; they talk 
about things which they have no right even 
to think about; they read about things that 
are salacious and that remain in the imagina- 
tion as an unwholesome and disastrous in- 
fluence. 

What excuses do they give themselves in 
these matters? They seem to consider that 
the world of imagination is a free world, in 
which they can do whatsoever they will, with- 
out law or restriction. What is imagination, 
they say, except something unreal and un- 
substantial? Some souls, whose actual lives 
afford few real pleasures, think that they 
can indulge as they please in the pleasures 
of imagination. 

Do we say that it is impossible to control 
the imagination? Perhaps it is impossible 
to control it absolutely; but we can hold it 
in check, and it is surely possible not to 

*J. D. Plunket, M. D., Nashville, Ky. 



140 MENTAL MEDICINE 

stimulate and feed imagination witK Unwhole- 
some nourishment. 

Do any say that they have immunity in the 
field of imagination, since if it harms anybody, 
it will be nobody but themselves? But they 
must remember, they never harm themselves 
without harming others. " We are members 
one of another." Do we say that as long as 
thoughts do not issue in deeds, our thoughts 
are guiltless ? We would scorn to do wrong ; 
scorn to steal, scorn to murder, but yet do 
our thoughts circle sometimes round the 
whole compass of the commandments, and 
we think unworthy thoughts against God and 
man. 

This is the great truth. It needs iteration 
and reiteration. Our thought is real — it is an 
actual and substantial part of us. Our im- 
agination does count; our thought is a deed! 
It makes our life. God's word saith : M As 
a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

These sins of imagination are dangerous in 
two ways. First they make temptation easier 
to us, by accustoming us to the thought of 
the sin. Some love to play with fire. Some 
love to walk along the edge of the precipice 
of temptation. It is most perilous ; it is dally- 
ing with sin; it is inviting, even welcoming 



CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 141 

temptation. It is the first step to the overt 
act. Never comes the deed, unless it is first 
committed in the imagination. 

These imaginations also actually stain and 
weaken the fiber of the soul. An evil sugges- 
tion makes a strong impress upon the mem- 
ory. It brushes off the bloom from the soul, 
and almost inevitably spoils something of the 
nobler life. An evil and unwholesome im- 
agination may contaminate the very springs of 
life. It may create a subtle poison in the at- 
mosphere. It may make the imagination per- 
manently diseased, and thus a chronic curse 
in the life. 

Moreover, these vicious or unwholesome im- 
aginations, often become in themselves actual 
sin. If the evil thought come suddenly, and 
is resisted and scorned and flouted, no harm 
may be done. But if it come, and is nour- 
ished and cherished, and rolled as a sweet 
morsel under the tongue, then real sin is com- 
mitted in the soul. It is the willing harboring 
and indulging of unworthy and ignoble im- 
aginations that is the fatal thing. 

This subtle peril begins in the earliest years, 
and some phases of it are life-long. Imagina- 
tion is fresh and strong in childhood and 
youth. Children are wonderfully full of im- 



142 MENTAL MEDICINE 

agination and of an insatiate curiosity, al- 
though they are at first absolutely pure-minded. 
There has been many a case of evil imagina- 
tion in childhood made and fostered by un- 
wholesome surroundings or companions or 
habits. Parents should exercise wisdom in 
training the children, and teaching them so 
that the imagination may be directed into 
right channels. They should give the chil- 
dren plenty of good reading, and fill their 
lives with good wholesome friends and recrea- 
tions, leaving no room for the evil influences. 

There is so much yellow journalism in our 
day which panders to a vicious and morbid 
imagination, there is so much in modern lit- 
erature that is unsavory, so much in modern 
theaters and their bill-board advertisements 
that is vicious and depraving. There are so 
many low places of amusement, frequented by 
children and young people, which are con- 
stant incitements to vicious imagination and 
actual vice. These things are the real men- 
ace in our present-day life. 

Parents complain that their children are get- 
ting away from them — that they are losing a 
taste for solid reading and serious things, and 
that they constantly crave excitement. 
In youth they are already burning the can- 



CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 143 

die at both ends, living at the pace that kills, 
wasting their reserves, and becoming reckless 
and morbid in their moods. 

Much of the trouble comes from the con- 
stant stimulation of imagination along un- 
wholesome and morbid lines. 

Fathers and mothers are largely responsible 
for these things. They ought to know what 
their boys and girls are reading, and what 
they are seeing. Perhaps a little more real 
companionship with their children, a little 
more careful and wholesome guidance, would 
mean much for them, and for the future 
years. 

There comes the practical question: How 
can we definitely control the imagination, how 
can we purify our thought, how can we get 
rid of the morbidities and iniquities of the 
imagination and restore the sanctities of the 
inner life? 

The process consists of three steps. First 
of all, we must have purification. We can 
have this only through the prayer : " Create 
in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit 
within me." This is the beginning, the essen- 
tial way. It is the work of God in the soul, 
purifying and renewing the life. It is the 
cleansing of the fountain. Nothing can come 



144 MENTAL MEDICINE 

before this; nothing is so important. Other 
methods are palliative. This goes to the root. 
This is the divine work, essential and funda- 
mental. 

But the second step is also exceedingly im- 
portant : preoccupation. This is our part. That 
is, we are to fill our mind with noble pictures 
and noble images. We are to read noble 
books, think high thoughts, keep in a whole- 
some atmosphere. The mind must have some- 
thing to work with. It will work with either 
good or bad material. Let it have the best 
material, and only this. 

The third step of the process for the con- 
trol of the imagination and the restoration 
of the sanctities of the inner life is this : Pro- 
tection. We must use insistent, eternal vigi- 
lance in keeping out evil. Some evil can be 
seen and fought against. Books, pictures, 
songs, companions that are evil and vulgar, 
we must be resolute against. We must avoid 
people and places that tear down the veils of 
delicacy and purity in the inner life. We must 
set our faces resolutely against these things. 
We cannot play with fire without being 
burned. We cannot touch pitch without be- 
ing defiled. 

We were speaking of these visible evils. 



CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 145 

Invisible suggestions of evil are as thick as 
germs in the air. We are none of us immune, 
except in one way; and that is, by keeping 
the spiritual health in good trim. If we neg- 
lect prayer and spiritual exercise and the good 
food of God's word, we will grow weak and 
liable to disease. The spiritual health is kept 
up by living in the light, and close to the 
heart of the Master, 



III. THE CAUSE AND CURE OF THE 
WORRY-HABIT. 

^4^^^ HE third class of morbid moods 
m £""\ which we have to consider are 

II 1 those bred by the worry-habit. 

^llBM^ What is "worry"? We all 
recognize it as a mental habit and 
a mental condition. It may be temporary or 
chronic. It is fret, anxiety, undue solicitude, 
the habit of borrowing care or trouble, the 
mood of apprehension, living in past regrets, 
present doubts and future forebodings. 

It has, as you know, various technical names 
in medical science. It may be hypochondria 
— undue solicitude and worry over one's 
health and a morbid attention to those things. 
It may be unhealthy obsession along certain 
insistent and compulsive lines of thought. It 
may be neurasthenia in one of the many 
forms of nervous disturbance characterized 
by exhaustion or irritability. It may be called 
a phobia, any one of the many engrossing 
fears without an adequate cause, that seem to 
afflict mankind. 

146 



THE WORRY-HABIT 147 

Says a discriminating thinker : " Worry 
is not to be confounded with fore- 
thought, which is the general director of our 
mental forces. Forethought borrows wisdom 
from past failures and successes, with which 
to lay plans for the future. True, it con- 
siders obstacles and difficulties, as a good 
general should, but only as hindrances which 
may be overcome. Forethought progresses; 
worry, like a squirrel in a revolving wheel, 
is always at the same point. . . . Worry 
might be defined as thought plus apprehen- 
sion, moving always in a circle." * 

Another puts the matter in this way: 
" Worry is always one of two things ; it 
is idiocy or insanity. You may take your 
choice, there is no third. Worry depresses 
the physical vitality, destroys courage, dims 
the vision of the ideal, weakens the will, stands 
in the way of realizing anything worth while; 
and the human being who hopes to accom- 
plish anything will get worry under his feet 
at the earliest possible moment. Work, on 
the other hand, good, honest, hard^ work, 
when in right relation, builds vitality and 
gives increased power." f 

* Bishop Samuel Fallows. 
t Edward Howard Griggs. 



148 MENTAL MEDICINE 

A clever magazine writer defines it well in 
the words : " Worry is discounting possible 
future sorrows so that the individual may 
have present misery. Worry is the father of 
insomnia. Worry is the traitor in our camp 
that dampens our powder, weakens our aim. 
Under the guise of helping us to bear the 
present and to be ready for the future, worry 
multiplies enemies within our own mind to 
sap our strength." 

What are the facts about the worry habit? 
We know that it is gaining among Americans. 
It grows easily and it becomes serious. Nerv- 
ous worry is now the great American disease. 

Some people worry over things that have 
happened; their lives are filled with vain re- 
grets. Others worry over things that are go- 
ing to happen. Some people worry over ac- 
tual things; others are constantly worrying 
over imaginary things. 

But we are awakening to the seriousness of 
the modern conditions of overwrought life. 
The steady increase of sanataria and nerv- 
ous hospitals, and rest-retreats are significant 
signs of the times. The forming in recent 
years of sunshine societies^ of " don't worry " 
circles, and " hundred year " or century clubs 
for rational living, show that people are real- 



THE WORRY-HABIT 149 

izing the need of new helps to meet the new 
and perilous conditions. 

It is not, however, the occasional and mo- 
mentary times of worrying that are so perni- 
cious. It is the continual and persistent worry- 
ing habit that is the trouble — the chronic 
worrying over everything — that is the mor- 
bid mood that must be cured. 

This is the prevailing disease of our 
modern life. There is so much of it — women 
who are perpetually full of anxious cares, men 
who are full of restless nervous haste — that it 
seems as if St. Martha^ nervous, solicitous 
St. Martha, were the patron saint of mod- 
ern womanhood, and as if St. Vitus, quick, 
jerky, restless St. Vitus, were the patron saint 
of the business men of to-day. 

Most people who are worried, worry over 
trifles. Some worry over the weather, and 
over temperature. Others worry over a spot 
of dirt. Some over-scrupulous housekeepers 
carry their house on their back wherever they 
go. Here one worries if a picture does not 
hang straight ; another worries over foods, and 
this one over dress. Some worry over every 
shooting pain they have. They are always 
looking at their sensations through a micro- 
scope, and seeing them a thousand times 



150 MENTAL MEDICINE 

greater than they actually are. Many worry 
over their work, over their failures ; others 
worry over criticism or lack of appreciation. 
A few worry over their spiritual condition — 
would there were more of these. Others 
worry over their financial condition. Many 
worry over themselves; some worry over 
others. 

Now, as to the causes of the worry habit. 
Many are they and various. The cause may 
be physical. It may be some organic trouble 
(possibly a slight cause but an irritating one) 
for which the patient ought to consult some 
wise physician. It may be eye strain, produc- 
ing nervous tension and irritability ; or it may 
be teeth or throat trouble. It may be physi- 
cal disturbance of the liver or stomach, often 
responsible for a good deal. Or the worry 
habit may be the result of overwork and gen- 
eral physical and nervous exhaustion. Again, 
the worry habit may be temperamental. Or, 
the worry habit may be the result of indul- 
gence in a wrong mental attitude toward life. 
It may be carping thoughts and anxious 
thoughts run wild. This is doubtless the most 
prolific cause of the worry habit. The malady 
is most prevalent among thoughtful people, 
conscientious people, good workers, among 



THE WORRY-HABIT 151 

those whom we want to save from such things 
for the sake of themselves and the world. 

True it is that the high nervous tension of 
our modern life is responsible for much of the 
worry condition. It is a restless life that many 
of us live — an unnatural fever. There is so 
much love of excitement, so great a struggle to 
keep up appearances, so feverish a desire to 
be something that we are not, such a nervous 
apprehension that we will be just what we 
actually are. There is such a living on 
nerves — such an unwillingness to be quiet, 
serene, passive and genuine — that the modern 
generation seems to be discovering a thou- 
sand more nerves than its ancestors, and is 
putting itself into condition to be irritated by 
trifles and to worry a mole-hill into a moun- 
tain. 

How can the worry habit be cured? How 
can people attain to peace of mind and a 
cheerful philosophy of life? So that they 
shall be like him of whom Wordsworth speaks, 
in the line — 

" A man of cheerful yesterdays and confi- 
dent to-morrows." 

It is not sufficient to say, " Don't worry," or 
even to ask "Why worry?" These phases 
themselves may grow irritating however well 



152 MENTAL MEDICINE 

intended they are ; nor do many find sufficient 
such advice as " Eliminate worry ! " We want 
something more tangible. Unaided resolution 
is not sufficient. What we want is to find 
the simple elements out of which worry is con- 
structed and eliminate them. We aim to take 
the keen edge off worry, and finally — to cure 
it entirely. In this way, we shall help our 
health, and also make better workers, worthier 
citizens and more agreeable companions. 

This is the encouraging fact. The worry 
habit can be overcome. If it is temperamen- 
tal — a real inheritance — even then it can be 
overcome, although it will be harder work. 
But we must understand — one cannot sum- 
marily stop worrying and be done with it. 
There will have to be a re-education of the 
mental habits. One can learn, by persistent 
will-power, how automatically to dismiss 
worry. But it may take some time. To cure 
the habit, one must be patient, persistent, 
determined to conquer. The worry habit can- 
not be conquered in one treatment, nor in 
one week. It is usually of long and gradual 
growth, and it will need rigorous and per- 
sistent treatment. But it can be overcome. 
That is the great fact ! Step by step it can be 
conquered until the habit has disappeared, 



THE WORRY-HABIT 153 

and a new mental and spiritual atmosphere 
has come into the life. 

This is the most vital and important part 
of the cure, and we put it into this single 
sentence: Replace the worrying thought by 
some other thought that will keenly interest 
and stimulate the life. This is the substitute 
cure. It can be made effective by persistent 
will. It can cure. It is capable of wonder- 
ful results. 

This is what it means. Deliberately choose 
some thought, some interest, directly opposite 
to that which is worrying, and interesting 
enough to engross attention for a time, and 
then concentrate attention by will power upon 
it. Dwell on it. Get absorbed in it. Keep 
steadfastly away from the worry-thought. 
Do not allow yourself to come back to it. 
Think away from it. You can do it, if you try. 

This is the substance of Horace Fletcher's 
popular pamphlets on " Menticulture " in its 
different phases. This is the chief method 
used by Dr. Walton of Boston, in his timely 
and suggestive little book called, "Why 
Worry ?" 

So also Dr. Achorn says in explaining this 
substitute cure : " The mind can be dis- 
charged from the consideration of any vex- 



154 MENTAL MEDICINE 

atious subject and the attention given to the 
enjoyment of any other. Mind cure is sim- 
ply the acquiring of control over impulses, 
emotions, or habits that demoralize. It sub- 
stitutes other habits, if necessary. The person 
gains mental poise, and leans toward opti- 
mism. The mind liberates the nervous mechan- 
ism and vital fluids of the body so that all 
the functions, both physical and mental, are 
performed normally. Whether the condition 
recognized as a chronic disorder or disease is 
due to mental or physical causes, one can- 
not always easily determine. If the person 
suffering is willing to cultivate one or two 
new habits for the old ones he suspects, al- 
though he may not be able to see that they are 
the cause of his trouble, he will often be sur- 
prised at the outcome/' * 

This definite method, simple as it is, rests 
on sound psychology and physiology. The 
greatest things after all are often the sim- 
plest, and commend themselves to our com- 
mon-sense. Psychology teaches us that ob- 
session (and worry is a form of obsession) 
can only be cured by replacement. The abil- 
ity to forget, to inhibit one thing and to sub- 

* J. Warren Achorn, M. D., in Religion and Medi- 
cine. 



THE WORRY-HABIT 155 

stitute another, is one of our finest mental 
abilities. Physiology also shows us con- 
clusively that we stimulate whatever we reso- 
lutely fix our attention upon. If we think 
unduly about our ills, our health is affected. 
If we forget them we get along better. 
Chronic introspection is a disease. Worry 
causes a disturbance and derangement of the 
entire vital system. 

Let us remember, therefore: The best cure 
for worry is substitution. Replace the worry 
thought by a better thought. Choose a whole- 
some, stimulating thought and keep to it. De- 
liberately do this, and use your will-power to 
inforce it. 

Whether there is a microbe of worry we 
do not know. Perhaps some enterprising doc- 
tor will discover one after awhile, and teach 
us also its antidote. But we do know that 
worry is singularly contagious and infectious. 
Just one person in a household with a bad 
case of worry is enough to demoralize the 
whole house, to put everybody on edge and 
to cast a gloom over the atmosphere of the en- 
tire family. 

But the microbe of worry, whether it is 
in the blood or the nerves, the heart, or the 
soul, or the air, can often be successfully 



156 MENTAL MEDICINE 

fought and conquered by a persistent will, 
working along the lines of substitution. Will 
is a marvelous antidote for a great many- 
things, but in this matter of the worry-habit 
it often works almost a miracle. 

Does this one method seem too general a di- 
rection ? Here then, are some minor but defi- 
nite matters which will help in accomplish- 
ing the substitution cure, and persons afflicted 
with the worry-habit might well be advised 
in such lines as these: 

I. First, keep your physical system in 
tone. For, in all this work, the physical and 
mental must act together and help each other. 
Look well after your daily hygiene. If possi- 
ble, take a sponge bath every morning, not 
necessarily cold, but with the chill just taken 
off. Then a rub-down with a rough towel, 
and a few exercises and a few minutes of 
deep breathing. Not too much clothing, day or 
night; heavy clothing irritates. A walk at 
least of two miles daily in the open air, — 
perhaps to and from the office, or better, in 
the country. 

Arrange your life so that you can have a 
little vacation every day. The best time for 
a vacation is a little every day, and for a 
long vacation, just before, and not after you 



THE WORRY-HABIT 157 

are exhausted. Eat regularly, slowly and 
masticate thoroughly. Get your hours of 
sleep or rest. These things will help in keep- 
ing you in fine physical trim and tone. 

2. Neglect your sensations and stop that 
habit of introspection. Leave your mind 
alone, your morals alone, your conscience 
alone. You have paid enough attention to 
them. Leave your body at peace for a while. 
A little neglect of your internal organs will 
be wholesome for them and for you. You 
stir them up too much by thinking about 
them. Direct your attention voluntarily away 
from yourself. Get up and do something. 
Go out and see something. Your trouble may 
not be 90 much nervous as misdirected energy 
and acquiescence in inertia and despondency. 

3. Take up a fad. We need diversity of 
interests. Fads are blessings in disguise. 
Take up something in which you are in- 
terested and devote some time and thought 
to it, even if only half an hour a day. 
You will think of it oftener. Photography, 
astronomy, music, history, old books, old 
prints, old furniture, a foreign language, col- 
lecting coins, studying birds or trees, pic- 
tures, golf, tennis or other things ; carpenter 
work, wood carving, cabinetmaking, would 



158 MENTAL MEDICINE 

be good fads. One of the best is working 
in a garden. Such side pursuits give an in- 
terest to life, and should be encouraged. 

4. Another point — pin your worries down 
to definite facts. Most of your worries are 
vague and indefinite. Many of them are 
imaginary. Write down in black and white 
what you are worrying about, and often- 
times you will see how absurd it is. The 
process of putting it down will clarify your 
vision. Sometimes at night, if you worry, 
promise yourself to clear it up in the morn- 
ing; often that will be sufficient. 

5. Learn to see the humor of the situation. 
Parents were worrying over their little child 
one night, who was fretting as they do some- 
times. The situation was growing tense when 
the wife said — " Aren't you thankful that we 
do not live in the polar regions where the 
nights are six months long ? " 

A Chinese philosopher wrote ages ago: 
"The legs of the stork are long, the legs 
of the duck are short: you cannot make the 
legs of the stork short, neither can you 
make the legs of the duck long. Why 
worry ? " 

6. Be philosophical. When you miss a car, 
do not say, " There goes my car ! " but 



THE WORRY-HABIT 159 

rather, " The next car is mine ! " When you 
miss an engagement now and then, after try- 
ing hard to meet it, why worry over it ? Such 
things happen to everyone now and then. 
Such is life. When you are traveling, do 
not worry because the train does not go 
faster, or think continually of the journey's 
end. Enjoy things as you go along. The 
speed of the train and arrival are not as vital 
as you think. It is vital to enjoy life now. 
If you fret about the weather it is futile. It 
will not change for you. Better make friends 
with the weather in all its moods. Learn to 
enjoy it in all its phases. Someone says: 
"Anyone can stand what he likes: it takes 
a philosopher to stand what he does not 
like. ,, It is said that Canon Beadon, who 
lived to be very old, told a friend that the se- 
cret of long life in his own case was that he 
never thought of anything unpleasant after 
ten o'clock at night. 

" You may learn/' as Dr. William Osier 
says, " to consume your own smoke. The 
atmosphere is darkened by the murmurings 
and whimperings of men and women over 
the non-essentials, the trifles that are inevi- 
tably incident to the hurly-burly of the day's 
routine. Things cannot always go your way. 



160 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Learn to accept in silence the minor aggrava- 
tions, cultivate the gift of taciturnity, and 
consume your own smoke with an extra 
draught of hard work, so that those about 
you may not be annoyed with the dust and 
soot of your complaints." 

7. Live only one day at a time. You need 
not live your whole past through every day. 
You need not borrow the future years. Live 
this one day. It is enough. And sometimes 
more than enough. But we can at least get 
through one day bravely. Michael Angelo 
used to say — " To-day I endure." Prof. Pal- 
mer put it: "We can always stand it for 
twenty-four hours." President Lincoln had 
his favorite phrase for trouble : " And this too 
will pass." There is a quaint proverb that 
has a great deal of wisdom in it. It runs: 
" Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles 
you." A certain father on his death-bed said 
to his children : " My children, don't worry: 
I have had many heavy troubles in my life, 
but most of them have been imaginary ones. 
Don't worry. It doesn't pay. Don't cross 
the bridge till you come to it." 

But now we come to the third and most 
vital point — the spiritual factor in the cure of 
the worry habit. 



THE WORRY-HABIT 161 

Worry is no more amenable to mere phys- 
ical treatment, than swearing or drunken- 
ness. But in the treatment for a real cure 
must come both physical, mental and spirit- 
ual elements. We have considered the phys- 
ical treatment and the mental. We have 
yet a few words to say about the spiritual 
treatment of the worry-habit. 

Dr. Saleeby has pointed out that the two 
greatest religions the world has ever seen, 
Buddhism and Christianity, are essentially 
anti-worrying religions, though reaching the 
goal by very different routes. Buddhism says, 
" Worry is an inevitable accompaniment of 
life. In order to get rid of it you must 
destroy the desire to live, and the goal of all 
being is Nirvana. It means absolute acquies- 
cence; the end of worry, because the end of 
life." Christianity, on the contrary says, 
" The great need is not less, but more abun- 
dant life. Worry is something that may be 
transcended, and the power by which you 
transcend it is trust in God and the service 
of man." 

Another confirmation is the witness of one 
of our leading psychologists, Professor James, 
who says, " The sovereign cure for worry 
is religious faith. The turbulent billows of 



162 MENTAL MEDICINE 

the fretful surface leave the deep parts of the 
ocean undisturbed, and to him who has a hold 
of vaster and more permanent realities, the 
hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny seem 
relatively insignificant things." * 

It is still the substitution cure that we ad- 
vocate, even by spiritual treatment. Replace 
your doubting, restless, distrustful, faithless 
attitude to God, by a trustful and confident 
faith in God. Take God at His word. Ac- 
cept and believe His promises and your wor- 
ries will gradually disappear, and all life will 
become new. 

There is one cause of worry in many lives 
which might well be considered in connec- 
tion with spiritual treatment, and that is the 
fact of actual transgression in the life. This 
is a rightful and sufficient cause for worry- 
ing. A man should not expect peace if he 
lives in deliberate sin. Conscience will tor- 
ment him and it ought to. Such an one is 
never really happy. He may seem so out- 
wardly, but down deep in his heart there is a 
root of bitterness. Sin cannot be happy. The 
pleasures of sin have in them the sting of re- 
morse. Anybody living in sin ought to worry 
and worry a great deal. For the life is wrong. 

* talks with Teachers on Psychology. 



THE WORRY-HABIT 163 

But such ought to do more than worry. They 
ought to put themselves right. There is help 
for them if they will, and a better life — a 
clean leaf for beginning a new record, and 
a new strength for the new life. 

And yet, even among religious people we 
oftentimes find worry, and here it is often 
a want of faith in the heart. This is a very 
real and widely prevalent cause. 

Why not trust God? Why not take Him 
at His word? Why not believe Him when 
He says that He is with us and that " all 
things work together for good ? " 

It is not unfair to say that persistent 
worrying is persistent unbelief — it is a subtle 
form of atheism. We may not intend it to be 
so, but so it is in its practical effects. A 
worrying Christian is a poor product of 
Christian faith — where does the faith come 
in at all? A Christian has no right to worry. 
It is doubting God's care and goodness. 
John Wesley used to say, " I would as soon 
curse and steal as worry. It is doubting 
God." 

Learn to look on the bright side, on the 
divine side. Cultivate the habit. Here is a 
practical way of doing it. Have one of your 
visiting cards with such words as these writ- 



164 MENTAL MEDICINE 

ten on the back — " God is love. — Count your 
mercies. — Worry never does any good. — 
Things might be worse. — All things work to- 
gether for good. — Be of good cheer, says 
Christ. — Have faith in God." Whenever you 
are disposed to worry, take this card and read 
it, and it will change the current of your 
thoughts. Use this card faithfully for a while 
and soon you will not need it. 

Napoleon, it is said, owed much of his 
energy, daring, prowess and success to his 
belief that he bore a charmed life, that he 
might do and dare anything, that disaster 
and death could not overtake him until his 
fate was accomplished. 

But we have a deeper and truer assurance. 
We are in God's hands, and nothing can 
really or permanently harm us and there is 
no death for us. " All things work together 
for good." We can absolutely rest in the as- 
surance, if we will, that it is not our duty to 
worry about ourselves or the universe. We 
are not responsible for the universe. It is 
God's doing and He is working out His 
plans. So with our lives. They are God's 
creation and He is working out His plan in 
them. All that we have to do is to try our 
best to work with Him. Take no anxious 



THE WORRY-HABIT 165 

thought for the morrow, but take thought 
of God. 

We must remember that we cannot grow in 
stature by straining ourselves upward, by 
taking anxious thought, nor can we grow in 
soul by strain, introspection and agonizing. 
We can only grow in nature or grace by 
putting ourselves in the natural ways of 
growth, by getting into the rhythmic mood 
of Nature, into the deeper ways of the spirit, 
into fuller and fuller harmony with God's 
will as it is revealed to us. 

We will find a deeper and richer spiritual 
experience as we learn to meditate often on 
the greatest facts of spiritual life, and come 
more continually to realize them in our lives. 
Such a habit cannot fail to bring a more 
joyous and confident mind and spirit, and re- 
act most helpfully and hopefully on the whole 
life, spiritually, mentally, even physically. 

Such a trust and faith means resting, ab- 
solutely resting the heart continually in the 
promises of God. It is taking God at His 
word. And His word is an impregnable 
rock. It is like a great Gibraltar in the midst 
of the changing sea of human life. Times 
may change, friends may change, all things 
change, but the Gibraltar of God — a strong- 



166 MENTAL MEDICINE 

hold and fortress — standeth forever. We 
plant our feet upon the Rock of God's word. 
We may tremble at times. But the Rock be- 
neath is strong as adamant, and immovable 
as the everlasting hills. 

These are some of the mental and spirit- 
ual factors in the cure of the morbid 
moods of persistent fears, and of diseased 
imagination, and of the chronic worry-habit. 
Of course, they are merely suggestions of 
rational persuasion along these lines. Each 
case is a separate experiment, and the special 
ways of reasoning, and the mental and spirit- 
ual stimulus to be suggested, must be dictated 
by the circumstances involved, but in some- 
thing of this method of giving a new outlook 
on life, may come, in many cases, the very 
help that is needed. 



FIFTH CONFERENCE 

The Higher Factors in the Re-education of 

the Nerves 

I. The Gospel of Relaxation. 
II. Work as a Factor in Health. 
III. The Inspiration of the Mental 
Outlook. 




L THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 

S we have previously said, we 
must remember that nervous dis- 
eases are real diseases, just as 
real as a fever or a broken bone. 
They are not imaginary; they 
cannot be laughed away. We must compre- 
hend the actual conditions. We must 
sincerely sympathize with the sufferers. But 
we must also be firm and confident in meet- 
ing such conditions, for in these new days 
nervous diseases can be treated effectively and 
successfully. 

The first and wisest thing in any case of 
neurasthenia is for the patient to consult a 
good physician who is a specialist along these 
lines — and who is sympathetic to new thought 
and methods, and who is broad enough and 
wise enough to use psychology when neces- 
sary ; then to follow his advice as faithfully as 
possible. 

You know, of course, about the rest-cure, 
technically so-called, as used by Dr. Weir 
Mitchell, Dr. Playfair, Dr. Paul DuBois, and 
169 



lyo MENTAL MEDICINE 

others, for twenty or thirty years past — the 
usual features being, first, complete rest in 
bed for a term of weeks; secondly, complete 
isolation, without letters or visits, although 
this has been modified in later years; and 
thirdly, overfeeding as frequently as possible 
to give increase of bodily weight. But Dr. 
DuBois tells us that his experience completely 
demonstrated that this course of treatment 
was rarely sufficient in itself. He found that 
the most effective factor in it all was the 
moral factor, and therefore, in all cases he 
advises constant use of rational psycho- 
therapy, which he illustrates very definitely 
and fascinatingly in his record of twenty 
years' experience as given in his book " The 
Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders." 

Do we know as much as we ought of that 
rest-cure which consists in teaching how to 
meet life by the doctrine of non-resistance? 
This is worth keeping to the fore in rational 
psychotherapy. 

First of all, therefore, let us consider the 
philosophy of the rest-cure, and the new 
gospel of relaxation. There is much in daily 
life, especially with nervousness, that can be 
accomplished by accepting the doctrine of 
non-resistance a little more fully. It is a 



GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 171 

preliminary step for healing many of the ills 
that flesh is heir to. 

Some of you perchance have read that 
suggestive book by Annie Payson Call, en- 
titled, " Power through Repose/' and her 
other book, " The Freedom of Life." These 
books have many chapters on this doctrine 
of the passive mood. They preach a veritable 
gospel of relaxation. Some things in the 
books may not perchance appeal to all of us, 
but yet there is plenty of good suggestion 
and an inspiring spirit. 

Certain people work and quickly become 
fatigued. What is the trouble ? Not the work, 
but the way they work. They attack 
their work with too much nervous tension 
and strain. They ought not to get fagged 
out by work, only wholesomely tired. When 
we get fatigued, we are working with too 
much tension at the back of the neck. We 
had better learn the art of the passive mood 
in work, that we may do the task easily and 
make even drudgery a pleasure. We had 
better get a new attitude to our work. 

Many people sleep and get no rest. They 
have the resistance habit. They are almost 
as tired in the morning as when they went 
to rest. Perhaps they sleep in a cramped 



172 MENTAL MEDICINE 

position, all doubled up, or with insufficient 
ventilation, or without relaxing the mind. 
They work all night in their sleep, if they 
sleep at all. They had better learn the pas- 
sive mood. It can cure all this. 

Many people eat regularly, three times a 
day — in an attitude of resistance to life. 
They do not get the full benefit of their food. 
They eat too much, or not enough, or too fast, 
under a strain and tension. They had better 
relax mind and body, eat slowly and in the 
attitude of the passive mood. They will find 
better digestion. 

Some people allow even their amusements 
to wear them out — all strain, tension, excite- 
ment, emotions rampant, nerves on the 
stretch. They had better learn the art of re- 
laxation and make amusements a real recrea- 
tion. 

There are those who let their sympathies 
wear them out in resisting the sorrows of suf- 
fering and calamity. Such sympathy is weak 
and sentimental. A true, large sympathy is 
strengthening. They need to get their sym- 
pathies on a higher plane, where they can 
relax in the larger vision of the blessing that 
suffering and calamity may bring. 

A man has some hard problem to solve. 



GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 173 

He gets into a highly wrought nervous con- 
dition over it, and it becomes more and more 
difficult and no nearer solution. In despair 
he leaves it ; he relaxes ; he goes about some- 
thing else. And when after a time he comes 
back, the problem seems to solve itself. In 
reality, it is because he has allowed subcon- 
sciousness to work, and also has come back 
to it with clearer brain and rested nerves. 

Many mothers wear themselves out resist- 
ing their children. Their whole idea of train- 
ing seems to be resistance. They had better 
learn the art of acceptance and guidance. 
All vehemence is weak; all nagging is 
wrong. 

Some patients are constantly resisting. The 
doctor has to say — " Now just relax. Just 
be passive and let Nature have a chance to 
do her work. Don't worry about the office. 
Make up your mind to take a rest while you 
are here. Don't resist. Accept. And you will 
get well twice as soon." 

What does all this mean? Does it not 
indicate that we ought to use and to teach the 
doctrine of the passive mood a great deal 
more than we do? We are too much on the 
strain, on high tension in life. We get into 
the chronic condition of excited nerves, of 



174 MENTAL MEDICINE 

muscles contracted, taunt, tense, and we for- 
get how to relax. 

We get so into the habit of persistent re- 
sistance that we wear ourselves out. The 
habit of resistance is at the root of worry, 
hurry, strain and irritability. Continual men- 
tal resistance gives brain fag; continual phys- 
ical resistance gives nervous exhaustion. 

Therefore, it is a part of wisdom to learn 
to relax mind and body. The gospel of re- 
laxation has a great lesson for daily life, 
even on the physical side. Notice people on 
the street. Most of them are sad looking. 
They are absorbed, intent on themselves 
or their troubles. Look at people in a street 
car. Most of them have a drawn look in 
their features — faces grown hard with the 
constant habit of resistance against the world, 
and feeling that the world is against them. 
Chronic resistance has become fixed habit. 
It is all wrong. 

All methods of mental healing inculcate 
the value of passivity in their treatment. 
The first thing is to place the patient in a 
comfortable position in an easy chair, and to 
command him : " Relax, now, relax every 
muscle! Be as passive as you can." This 
is the necessary condition before help can be 



GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 175 

given. It is a complete surrender. It is 
giving up to a higher wisdom for a time. 
But relaxation is not an end in itself. It is 
only a preliminary condition to something 
better — something positive, stimulating, and 
inspiring, and that something better is the 
strengthening and helpful truth persistently 
affirmed and reaffirmed in right mental sug- 
gestion. 

Moreover, the doctrine of the passive mood 
has its wisdom on the moral side, and this 
will also help in controlling the nerves. As 
an attitude to life, it is the triumphant way. 
If we are continually resisting and worrying 
over circumstances, life is a hard fight. But 
if we are willing to fail, willing to be poor, 
willing to suffer if needs be, willing to die 
when our time comes — as Stevenson says, 

" Glad have I lived and glad will I die, 
And I lay me down with a will/' — 

then we have lost the fear of all these things 
and can live life comfortably and bravely. 
If we realize that life's circumstances, what- 
ever they may be, are not limitations or pun- 
ishments, but opportunities for a nobler 
triumph, then will come the power of new 
conquest in life. 



176 MENTAL MEDICINE 

As a method of meeting antagonists in the 
ordinary ways of life, the passive mood has 
its advantages. When a man shows fight, it 
stirs up fight. Resistance excites counter- 
resistance. Force arouses all the antagonism. 
Systematic opposition, even to a child, de- 
velops all the wrong nature in him. When 
you meet a blatant fighter, he does not im- 
press you nearly so much as one who does 
not fight at all, but just holds the truth 
strongly and asserts it calmly. 

There is a modern as well as ancient wis- 
dom in the words — " A soft answer turneth 
away wrath; but grievous words stir up 
anger." When we allow ourselves to lose 
our temper, we always lose more than we 
gain. When we cultivate the fighting spirit, 
we are arousing the passions in us which 
secrete a poison in our system, and disorder 
all our inner life. The spirit of calmness; 
the taking of insult, or even of injustice, with 
equanimity is an attitude worth cultivating. 

The Japanese art of self-defense called 
Jiu-jutsu is a most suggestive illustration as 
Lafcadio Hearn explains it. Jiu-jutsu means 
literally conquering by yielding, and this is 
really the essential feature of the defense. 
It looks something like wrestling to our mod- 



GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 177 

ern eyes, but the fine art of it is the gentle 
art of non-resistance. The purpose is to en- 
courage the antagonist to deal his heaviest 
blows and gracefully escape them. So skill- 
fully is it learned and practiced that, in his 
defense, an adept can make one who is un- 
skillful unloose a joint or break his arm by 
a mere wrench at a vulnerable point. The 
stronger the opponent the worse his discom- 
fiture. It is intelligence and skill against 
brute force. This is all suggestive. 

In the physical way and for psychical 
healing, the doctrine of the passive mood is 
a preliminary to the further work. It is a 
clearing away of the barriers. It is making 
the right conditions for a positive work. It 
is the attitude of receiving. And that work, 
as we said, is largely the instilling into the 
passive mind and into the subconsciousness 
of the relaxed muscles, the positive affirma- 
tions of truth, of purity, of health, of the 
divine life. 



II. WORK AS A FACTOR IN HEALTH 

^J^^^JHESE few suggestions as to the 
m (^\ value of relaxation, and especi- 
WL J a ^y as ** * s carr * e d out under 

^Ifcfl Ufil^ careful direction in a rest-cure, 
lead us to consider a further step 
in the re-education of the nerves — and that 
is the work-cure. 

It is healthful to work. But it must be 
reasonable work to be healthful. A most 
excellent rule for the division of the day is 
the ancient one, ascribed to Alfred the Great : 
— " Eight hours for work, eight hours for 
play, eight hours for sleep." That seems nat- 
ural and sensible. None of us should do 
more than eight good hours of hard work 
and even less, if it is continuous intellectual 
work. Eight hours of play means the time 
for meals, recreation and social life. Every 
life should have some recreation every day. 
And then eight hours for sleep — genuine 
sleep or at least the absolute rest in the quiet. 
Now it is an exceptional individual who can 
do with less than this amount of rest. It 
178 



WORK AS A FACTOR 179 

is not wise to cut off any of these hours of 
rest. It is suicidal to burn the candle at both 
ends. 

The old but divine command : " Six days 
for work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
of the Lord your God/' must not be for- 
gotten. One day in seven is not yours ; it be- 
longs to God. God would make it for you a 
day of real refreshment of soul and body — 
no physical labor ; none of the occupations of 
the week — no blanket newspapers, full of sec- 
ular matter; but a new day — a day of op- 
portunity, a day of new vision; a time of 
worship with God in the sanctuary; a new 
glimpse into God's Word ; a walk in the fields 
with God; a visit of kindness or sympathy to 
some of God's children; a day of divine rest 
and recreation and love. 

Many people are spoiling their lives by 
making all seven days alike. They break the 
divine law. Some devote six days to selfish 
competition and the seventh day brings no 
vision — how can such people see life as it 
ought to be, or do their work with any heart? 
Six days devoted to hard and reasonable work 
and the seventh day devoted to the things of 
the higher life — will make work a blessing 
and a health in the life. 



180 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Now work is not merely a necessary factor 
in every day's good health — a part of the nat- 
ural law for the preservation of health — 
but work may also become a means of restora- 
tion to health. 

The value of enjoyment on the physical 
side gained by self-forgetful work is well 
brought out by Forel, in his " Hygiene of 
Nerves and Mind." He says : " We must 
banish pleasure-seeking (but not pleasure it- 
self) from our lives. Every pleasure culti- 
vated for its own sake leads to ennui and 
disgust and injures the nervous health. 
Every healthy enjoyment must be earned by 
an harmonious mode of life. It is a pleasure 
to sleep, even on a hard bench, if you are 
tired; or to eat crude dishes, if you are 
hungry. To drink pure water is a healthy 
enjoyment, if you have a natural thirst, and 
it does not injure one like the satisfaction 
of the artificial thirst for alcohol that results 
in poisoning. Mental work is a healthy pleas- 
ure, if the need for muscular exercise and 
activity beside it is also satisfied. Muscu- 
lar work is a pleasure when alternated with 
activity of thought and feeling, but not 
when carried on purely mechanically and 
automatically without any active attention; 



WORK AS A FACTOR 181 

for then it does not replace either abstract 
thought or emotional excitement, which can 
both be present to lead us astray in spite of 
such work." 

There may be a very interesting compari- 
son instituted between Omar Khayyam and 
Ecclesiastes. Both emphasize this present 
life ; both seem rather pessimistic ; both say — 
" do your best to enjoy life." But how dif- 
ferent are the ways that they suggest. 

Omar's ideal of enjoyment is: 

" A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and 

Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
O Wilderness were Paradise enow ! " 

It is careless, easy, lazy ideal. The useless 
life expressed in the Italian — " dolce far 
niente " — the sweet pleasure of doing nothing. 

But in Ecclasiastes the ideal of enjoyment 
is this, thrice repeated and emphasized as 
the keynote of the book : " I know that there 
is no good but for a man to rejoice, and 
to do good in his life • . . and to enjoy the 
good of all his labor, it is the gift of God." 

Again : " There is nothing better for a 



182 MENTAL MEDICINE 

man than that ... he should make his soul 
enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw that 
it was from the hand of God." 

And still again : " Wherefore I perceive 
that there is nothing better than that a man 
should rejoice in his awn works; for that is 
his portion." That is, it is the life of use- 
fulness that is the best life and the happiest. 

In a word, this is the difference between 
Omar Khayyam and Ecclesiastes. Omar's 
chief figure is an idler, a loafer, a dilettante. 
But Ecclesiastes' is a worker, rejoicing in his 
work, loving his work and enjoying it, full 
of practical thrift and wholesome service. 

However the present popularity of Omar 
Khayyam is a sign of reaction against absorp- 
tion in theological subtleties and speculations. 
It is real appreciation of this life. Its attrac- 
tive theme is — " Let's make the most out of 
this life." 

But this is also the equally attractive theme 
of Ecclesiastes, treated in a much wiser way. 
Ecclesiastes is a much greater book. It is 
not morbid, but wholesome, when looked at 
rightly. It is not melancholy, but inspiring. 
It is an exposition of the best that was then 
known. Its chief theme is, Do not worry 
about the future, but work in the present 



WORK AS A FACTOR 183 

with all your strength, and it will be your 
joy! 

It is not work that kills, not even hard 
work. We may work hard every day until 
we are physically tired, but if we have good 
food and sufficient sleep, we may be able to 
stand it for a long stretch. But put hard 
work and worry together and there the mis- 
chief is done. It is not hard work, but worry 
that kills. We have instances of this every 
day. 

" This world," as one says truly, " was 
given us to work in and to play in. It is 
a pretty place ; but thousands of people under 
existing conditions seem to make a nightmare 
out of ordinary work and living. . . . 
Under the stress of modern competition one- 
half of mankind overpowers the other half 
and then has them to take care of as in- 
valids. Women compete with men under the 
laws made for men, although women are 
rated half as strong physically as men." All 
these things make hard working conditions. 

It is most pitiable to see many people, who 
know better, wearing themselves out even 
in social settlements and philanthropic work 
because they will not stop a minute. Some 
excellent school teachers are on the strain 



184 MENTAL MEDICINE 

from one week's end to another and at the 
end of the term are nervous and physical 
wrecks. One splendid teacher, however, told 
me once when I asked her how she kept in 
such exceptional and prime physical condition, 
" I take a little vacation every day and I 
do not worry." She was a fine worker, a 
hard worker, but she did not worry. 

Oh for the gift of knowing when to stop 
workl Work does become fascinating and 
absorbing. We think we must do it; or we 
have the passion for finishing it. We say, 
" just an hour or two more and it is finished." 
We work even when the warning has been 
given, and we know we should not continue. 

This I contend. We know when we ought 
to stop. The instinct, God-given, is within. 
Often it has been emphasized in our lives by 
bitter and costly experience. If we are sen- 
sible, we will obey the inherent laws of God, 
live in a cheery wholesome mental atmosphere 
and use our common sense and we can do 
good work and full work. 

For many people, work is salvation — the 
occupation-cure is the very thing that is 
needed. Some people are afflicted with 
worry, nervous fears, abnormal restlessness 
or melancholia; and then,, oftentimes, the 



WORK AS A FACTOR 185 

very best thing is to get them to do some- 
thing; to get them interested in work, thus 
taking their thoughts as far as possible from 
themselves and their condition. Many sani- 
tariums use these methods very effectively. 

It is thoroughly proved by many experi- 
ences. Physical exercises requiring fixed at- 
tention often exert a most beneficial influence 
on certain classes of nervous sufferers. Such 
pleasant work as cataloging, clay-modeling, 
gymnastic exercises are frequently of the 
greatest value. 

Most of us know that it is a great deal 
more tiresome to have nothing to do than to 
be full of work. The happiest people in this 
world are not the idlers ; they are those who 
are busy all the time, those who work and 
work hard. If work was ever a curse, now 
it is a blessing. It is only when it becomes 
overwork that it is a curse. 

Do you remember that paragraph in 
Lecky's "Map of Life?" He is quoting 
from a famous physician, Dr. Mortimer 
Granville : " The best way to live well, is to 
work well. Good work is the daily test and 
safeguard of personal health. . . . The prac- 
tical aim should be to live an orderly and 
natural life. We were not intended to pick 



186 MENTAL MEDICINE 

our way through the world, trembling at 
every step. ... It is worse than vain, for it 
encourages and increases the evil it attempts 
to relieve. ... I firmly believe," he con- 
tinues, " that one-half of the confirmed in- 
valids of the day could be cured of their 
maladies if they were compelled to live busy 
and active lives and had no time to fret over 
their miseries. . . . One of the most seduc- 
tive and mischievous of errors in self-man- 
agement is the practice of giving way to in- 
ertia, weakness and depression. . . . Those 
who desire to live should settle this well in 
their minds, that nerve power is the force of 
life and that the will has a wondrously 
strong and direct influence over the body and 
nervous system." 

But another helpful thought we would em- 
phasize — not only is work a part of the divine 
law of our being for possessing health; 
not only is work often the best means for the 
restoration of health — but this thought: We 
ought to have as a constant mental back- 
ground and spiritual stimulus the conviction 
that God has given us work to become the 
greatest joy of our lives. 

We must realize that when we work, we 
are working with Him. We must rejoice in 



WORK AS A FACTOR 187 

our work, because in doing it, we are in 
fellowship with the divine creative power. 
Here we come to the most inspirational and 
tonic part of the philosophy of work. We 
need this spiritual stimulus. We are to re- 
joice in our work, for it is a blessing to 
humanity. The world needs all kinds of 
workers. Hand workers are just as much 
needed as brain workers. The farmer in the 
field is just as much needed as the statesman 
in the cabinet. 

Go into a carpenter's shop. The song of 
the plane takes one back to the carpenter 
shop at Nazareth. Go into a great machine 
shop and see them working in the solid iron 
and steel, and see the great machines run- 
ning so majestically, unerringly, inevitably in 
their work. Such a visit puts tonic into our 
blood. What an interesting place is one of 
our great merchant stores! A great hive 
of industry, where each has his special 
field! 

Stand in a colossal city like New York, 
and wonder how such an immense city with 
its millions would ever find its food — a mil- 
lion loaves of bread every day, rivers of 
milk, a hundred head of cattle every day. 
But the problem is solved by that unique 



188 MENTAL MEDICINE 

law of supply and demand, and the busy 
activities of thousands and tens of thousands 
of workers, each doing his useful part. 

The whole world is as busy as a bee. 
Upon this incessant toil of the multitudes 
depends the life and happiness of existence. 
Each one fits somewhere, each one has his 
niche in the order of existence, each one 
must bring his contribution toward the gen- 
eral welfare. Whatever our work may be, 
by brain or hand, humble or conspicuous, at 
home or in public, whatever it is, if it be 
honest work, it is a blessing to humanity, 
and if we do it faithfully, we are benefactors 
of the race. 

Blessed is that man who sees deeply into 
his work. There is no work but what is 
pleasurable, and intensely interesting, if the 
worker takes the trouble to get below the 
surface of his task. The strength and 
variety of materials, the miracle of natural 
action, the marvel of mechanics, the dexter- 
ity or ingenuity of hand or mind, the pos- 
sibilities of improvement, the satisfaction of 
achievement — these are all full of an ever- 
growing interest and surprise, to one who 
sees deeply. If our work is commonplace or 
tedious in our chosen field or profession, de- 



WORK AS A FACTOR 189 

pend upon it, it is because we ourselves are 
growing commonplace or tedious. 

No honest work ought to be beneath us. 
No useful or beautiful thing is unworthy of 
our best efforts in the making. There is 
nothing in Nature, however trifling or 
obscure, but the divine wisdom and strength 
wrought in its making. God's work is not 
merely religious w T ork. We have strange 
notions, and limit God's work most curiously. 
God's work is also material work — physical 
and artistic. Everything that man has done, 
God has done before him. Every invention 
of man, God had previously invented in His 
brain. So all good work is work with God. 
Deuteronomy says expressly — " Say not in 
thine heart, my power and the might of my 
hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou 
shalt remember the Lord, thy God; for it is 
He that giveth thee power to get wealth." 
It is also said expressly that all artificers of 
the temple worked under the inspiration of 
the Almighty. 

The inspiration of the Almighty ! What is 
the ultimate purpose of this man's making 
shoes, and that one selling grain, and that 
one doing farming, and the other weaving 
shawls? Is it to the end of physical wealth 



190 MENTAL MEDICINE 

or comfort? Mark you I The purpose of all 
work is that we may enter into true life, and 
feel sympathy with the divine purpose. In 
a word, it is to enter into closer fellowship 
with the divine. Work ought not to be a 
mere bread and butter strife, not a mere pot- 
boiling business. It is a divine fellowship in 
the art of a divine creation. All work 
and all labor are hints of God's continual 
work. Every work is, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, a similitude of the work of creation. It 
is a transformation by will power and in- 
telligence of forces and materials. This is 
the mental attitude that can make work a 
joy, a strength and an inspiring factor of 
health. We must learn to see the divine 
quality of work. Such a view of work as 
this, if we can bring it home to those who 
most need it, will be a real help in making 
work interesting, and will be profitable in 
the re-education of the nerves. 



III. THE INSPIRATION OF THE 
MENTAL OUTLOOK 

^> w j^ E come more definitely to the 
f& II ^^ mincl-cure in this same process 
I I I of restoration of the nerves to 
X^fc^^ equilibrium. And the first ques- 
tion which confronts us is, Can 
the nerves be helped by a larger and truer 
mental outlook? 

For the slighter degrees of nervous exhaus- 
tion, and especially for the preservation of 
our nervous system in good health, some of 
the following mental and spiritual sugges- 
tions may prove helpful to many. They are 
founded on sound psychology and physiology, 
although they may seem simplicity itself. 

i. We do not begin to value at its full 
worth such a mental factor as cheerfulness, 
both in the maintenance of health and the 
cure of the slighter forms of nerve disorders. 

Here is the testimony of a physician : " In 
the maintenance of health and the cure of 
disease, cheerfulness is a most important fac- 
tor. Its power to do good like a medicine 
191 



192 MENTAL MEDICINE 

is not an artificial stimulation of the tissues 
to be followed by reaction and greater waste, 
as is the case with many drugs ; but the effect 
of cheerfulness is an actual life-giving in- 
fluence through a normal channel, the results 
of which reach every part of the system. It 
brightens the eye, makes ruddy the counte- 
nance, brings elasticity to the step, and pro- 
motes all the inner force by which life is 
sustained. The blood circulates more freely, 
the oxygen comes to its home in the tissues, 
health is promoted and disease is banished." * 
Nor is it all merely therapeutic. Cheerful- 
ness has its practical everyday value in the 
business world. " A sunny, cheerful, gra- 
cious soul/'' as one says, " is like an ocean 
breeze in sultry August, like the coming of 
a vacation. We welcome it because it gives 
us at least temporary relief from the 
strenuous strain of life. Country store-keep- 
ers look forward for months to the visits of 
jolly, breezy traveling men, and their whole- 
sale houses profit by their good-nature. 
Cheerful-faced and pleasant-voiced clerks 
can sell more goods and attract more cus- 
tomers than disagreeable ones. Promoters, 
organizers of great enterprises, must make a 

*Dr. A. J. Sanderson. 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 193 

business of being agreeable, of harmonizing 
hostile interests, of winning men's good opin- 
ion. Newspaper men, likewise, depend on 
making friends to gain entree, to get inter- 
views, to discover facts, and to find news. 
All doors fly open to the sunny man, and he 
is invited to enter, when the disagreeable, 
sarcastic, gloomy man has to break open the 
door to force his way in. Many a business 
success is founded on courtesy, cheerfulness 
and good humor." * 

2. Besides cheerfulness, there is real 
worth in the cultivation of courage. Cour- 
age is a mental condition that can be culti- 
vated and it is of distinct therapeutic value. 

So Dr. Marden, editor of the' " Success " 
Magazine writes : " If young people only 
knew the power of affirmation, of the habit 
of holding in the mind persistently and af- 
firming that they are what they wish to be, 
that they can do what they attempt, it would 
revolutionize their whole lives, it would 
exempt them from most of their ills and 
troubles, and carry them to heights of which 
they scarcely dream/' 

3. A serene and sunshiny life is food and 
tonic for the nerves. It is no small or un- 

* Dr. Marden in Every Man a King. 



194 MENTAL MEDICINE 

important task to cultivate sunshine in the 
life. A sunny serene outlook makes better 
work. 

Recall the mental balance and equipoise of 
spirit in the great poets, such as Shake- 
speare, Tennyson and Browning. They are 
serene and optimistic, because of their large 
vision. Undoubtedly it is true, as one says: 
" The work turned out by a calm balanced 
mind is healthy and strong. There is a vigor 
and naturalness about it that is not found in 
the work done by a one-sided man, a mind 
out of balance. Serenity never dwells with 
discontent, with anxiety, with over-ambition. 
It never lives with the guilty, but dwells only 
with a clear conscience; it is never found 
apart from honesty and square dealing, or 
with the idle or vicious." 

4. Good sleep is food and strength to the 
nerves and a serene and sunny mental out- 
look gives better sleep. One physician says: 
" I know a few peopJe who have learned the 
supreme art of preparing for a sweet, peace- 
ful, restful, refreshing sleep by reversing the 
brain processes which have perplexed them 
and bothered them during the day. They 
have learned the secret of shutting out all 
their troubles, trials and perplexities, of lock- 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 195 

ing them in the store or office or factory 
when they turn the key at night. They never 
drag their business troubles home. They 
consider themselves at play from the moment 
they leave work until they get back again. 
Nothing can induce them to be bothered or 
bored with anything relating to business. 
They have learned the secret and power of 
harmonious thought, the happy thought, the 
optimistic thought. They prepare their 
minds for a serene, harmonious night's sleep 
by summoning thoughts of joy, youth, peace, 
and love, to be their mind's guests for the 
night, and will entertain no others. They 
will not allow the old worry-thought and 
anxious thought to drag their hideous 
images through the brain to spoil their rest 
and leave ugly autographs in the face. The 
result is that they get up in the morning re- 
freshed, rejuvenated, with all the spontaneity 
of their youth." 

5. A hospitable mental outlook helps the 
nerves to get out of ruts and makes your life 
longer. Do we realize that in this phi- 
losophy of life and in this cultivation of an 
alert mental atmosphere is something of the 
power of the very fountain of youth? When 
Solon, the Athenian sage, was asked the 



196 MENTAL MEDICINE 

secret of his strength and youth, he replied 
that it was " learning something new every 
day." This belief was general among the 
ancient Greeks — that the secret of eternal 
youth was " to be always learning something 
new." There is a basis of truth in the idea. 
Says a well known physician : " It is healthful 
activity that strengthens and preserves the 
mind as well as the body, and gives it youth- 
ful quickness and activity. So, if you would 
be young, in spite of the years, you must re- 
main receptive to new thought, and must 
grow broader in spirit, wider in sympathy 
and more and more open to fresh revelations 
of truth as you travel further on the road of 
life." 

6. It is worth while to cultivate calm- 
ness and serenity as a fine art. " It is 
a great aid to the preservation of youth 
and vigor," says Prentice Mulford, " to 
be able to sit still and keep still in mind as 
well as in body when there is really nothing 
to do, because in such condition, mind and 
body are recuperating and filling up with new 
force. Do you realize that the body is not 
fed with material food alone? There are 
other elements, often unrecognized, which 
act upon it and give it strength, and the 
grand source and means of receiving these 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 197 

lie partly in that mental and physical quietude 
of mind which acts only when it has full 
power to act. If wisdom guides action, either 
by brain or hand, a great deal more is accom- 
plished and a balance of life's forces is kept 
in reserve." Do you remember what the 
genial doctor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said 
was the secret of his marvelous youthfulness 
in his eightieth year? "It is due chiefly to 
a cheerful disposition and invariable content- 
ment in every period of my life, with what 
I was. I never felt the pangs of ambition, 
discontent, and disquietude that makes us 
grow old prematurely by carving wrinkles 
on our faces. Wrinkles do not appear on 
faces that have constantly smiled. Smiling 
is the best possible massage. Contentment 
is the fountain of youth." 

This trained mental outlook, therefore, 
is a part of the suggestion for the re-educa- 
tion of the nerves. In serious cases, seek a 
wise physician who uses both physical and 
psychic treatment. In milder cases, try for 
yourself the deliberate cultivation of cheer- 
fulness, courage, and the great affirmations 
of confidence and optimism. These things 
will have their reaction on body — on sleep, on 
nerves, and on length of years. 

Forel gives two excellent suggestions for 



198 MENTAL MEDICINE 

mental hygiene equally applicable to a patient 
passing through any nervous disorder, or to 
anyone desiring to keep good nervous poise. 
He says : " Then let the steady compass of 
our unswerving optimism be: Ever forward 
to a large-hearted ideal ; never look back ! " 
His second suggestion is " to pay as little at- 
tention as possible to functional nervous 
troubles and disturbances so as not to culti- 
vate them by habit." 

7. Nor must we neglect this great fact. 
The therapeutic value of love cannot be over- 
estimated. As one says : " Evil thought and 
hateful feeling is banished by it from the 
mind. It tranquillizes, calms, and yet ener- 
gizes the entire nature. It kindles the en- 
thusiasm of all healthy affection and emo- 
tions. It gives a secret power that brings 
back and helps to maintain abounding health 
and unalloyed happiness. Every nerve, every 
muscle, every organ, feels its life-giving in- 
fluence. The God of love fills His earthly 
temple with His hallowed presence as surely 
as He will fill the temple of humanity 
with His glory when love shall reign 
supreme." 

Attention may be called to the fact that Rus- 
kin dwells upon love as " the source of unity 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 199 

in Art, and as intimately connected with vital 
beauty. Through it the loveliest things are 
wrought. The ideal form can be reached by 
it alone." Leo Tolstoi strikes a fundamental 
note when he says : " One may deal with 
things without love, one may cut down trees, 
make bricks, and hammer iron without love, 
but you cannot deal with men without 
love." 

Bishop Fallows notes that " Thomas a 
Kempis derived all good from love, and all 
evil from the opposite. He declares in his 
Pauline eulogy on love, ' It gives all for all, 
possesses all in all, because it reposes in the 
One Supreme Good, from which every good 
originates and flows/ Love is not opposed to 
knowledge; it is blended with it, even as it 
is united with faith. Reason and love ought 
never to come into conflict, for it would be like 
a house divided against itself. Let love be 
guided by reason and penetrated with knowl- 
edge, then will come the reconciliation of all 
the contradictions of life, and the harmony 
of mankind." 

There is the remarkable case of Helen Kel- 
ler, bound by physical limitations that seemed 
at first utterly hopeless, shut in to a world 
where no light nor sound ever penetrates, 



200 MENTAL MEDICINE 

who has yet made such a magnificent triumph 
of her life that her words about joy, whose 
handmaid is cheerfulness, carry peculiar 
conviction. "Join the great company," she 
says, " of those who make the barren places 
of life fruitful with kindness. Carry a vision 
of heaven in your souls, and you shall make 
your home, your college, the world, correspond 
to that vision. Your success and happiness 
lie in you. External conditions are the ac- 
cidents of life, its outer trappings. The 
great enduring realities are love and serv- 
ice. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our pur- 
pose warm and our intelligence aglow. Re- 
solve to keep happy, and your joy and you 
shall form an invincible host against difficul- 
ties." 

Now in all this, mental factors count 
for a great deal. But a more important fac- 
tor than the merely mental is needed. The 
situation demands the fullest help, the divine 
and infinite background of the spiritual fel- 
lowship and power. Our chief work, if we 
are able, is to create a spiritual atmosphere. 
For this will have emphatic reaction on the 
physical. 

i. We may remember that there is a dis- 
tinct therapeutic value in a simple faith in 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 201 

God. Perfect confidence in God, the rest of 
faith, the peace that passeth understanding, 
are the old phrases, which are coming to have 
a fuller meaning in these days. 

Do you remember the word that kept the 
great Gladstone serene in the midst of his 
wearing life and heavy responsibilities? 
When the great burdens of his office as prime 
minister of England were heaviest upon him, 
and someone spoke to him, wondering how 
he could stand the terrific strain, he told the 
secret when he said that at the foot of his 
bed where he could see it when he retired, 
and when he rose up in the morning, were the 
words, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he 
trusteth in Thee. ,, Many people ought to 
have that verse in letters of gold where they 
could see it night and morning. It would 
put a new spirit into their lives. 

As Phillips Brooks says: "Quiet has 
come in place of the noise; repose instead of 
action. . . . Some day the .headlong current 
of your life was stopped. The river ceased 
to flow. The waves stood still, and then the 
ocean, which the flowing of the river had 
kept out, poured up and in, and there were 
sacreder emotions in the old channels, and 



202 MENTAL MEDICINE 

deeper hopes and fears were beaten upon the 
well-worn banks. The day when your deep 
bereavement came, . . . the day when joy, 
with that subtle possibility of deep pain which 
is always in her eyes, came to your door and 
knocked, . . . the day when, being weak and 
ill, you did not go to your business, . . . 
these were the days when God was feeding 
you. . . . No life is complete which does not 
sometimes sit trustfully waiting to be fed of 
God." 

Let me quote a letter recently received 
which gives a fine illustration of this process 
of mental and spiritual education. 

It reads in part : " There came a time, after 
three serious illnesses, when family sorrow 
and responsibilities completely overtaxed me 
physically and mentally. I not only felt un- 
able to go on living, but I really think my 
wise physician felt that I might not live if 
something were not done. It was then I 
began to seek, by God's aid, for that diviner 
self, which I had lost, the true and eternal 
' 1/ which not only could lay hold of truth, 
but which could detach itself utterly from the 
sad, weary and over-burdened individual who 
could not see her way to go on living. 
Gradually, after many failures, my conscious- 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 203 

ness of this diviner self grew stronger, recol- 
lections of old symptoms of illness became ef- 
faced from my brain and nerves, daily cares 
and trials ceased to affect me; my mind felt 
free and eager for the first time in a year to 
seek new truth and enjoy new beauty. And 
strangest of all, my strength, digestion and 
sleep are returning steadily. Of course I 
give full credit to the doctor who cured me 
of serious illnesses, but it was he also who 
urged me to a total change of thought to 
complete the cure." 

2. Do you know that ancient but effective 
method, called " the practice of the presence 
of God?" It also has therapeutic value and 
is a distinct nerve tonic, as well as a life 
tonic. 

This fine phrase of Jeremy Taylor's that 
haunts the soul with a continual surprise and 
delight is the heart of his book on " Holy 
Living." The book itself is an astonishment. 
It is so opulent in its learning, so brilliant in 
its phrasing, so spiritual in its feeling, and 
so absolutely practical in its definite counsel- 
ings. It is wise in worldly wisdom, it has 
a flavor of colleges and king's courts and 
yet there is heavenly light on every page, and 
the pervading benediction of a splendid reli- 



'/ 



204 MENTAL MEDICINE 

gious sanity. Jeremy Taylor is rightly called 
the Shakespeare of divines and the Chrysos- 
tom of the English Church, and his book is, 
" a part of that larger Bible which is the 
record of the deepest experiences of the most 
spiritual, and, therefore, the most Christian, 
souls of all the ages." 

Says the good bishop : " We may imagine 
God to be in the air and the sea, and we all 
enclosed in His circle, wrapt up in the lap of 
this infinite nature. We can no more be re- 
moved from the presence of God than from 
our own being." 

This is the general proposition which is but 
a phrasing of the great 139th Psalm % 
"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit or 
whither shall I flee from Thy Presence ? " 
Or of Paul to the Athenians : " In Him we 
live and move and have our being." 

All of us readily admit the theory of the 
presence of God. It is all true, we say, and 
the next moment we forget it, and act as if 
God were far off in the infinitudes. How can 
we make theory into practice, how can we 
have God's presence so vivid and real to us 
as shall make it a perpetual and transform- 
ing power? 

This realization of God is our own per- 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 205 

sonal problem. It is the key to the art of 
living well, and being well. As one has rightly- 
said, " He who realizes God will use his time 
aright, will have purity of motive, will be 
clean in thought and act, and will make his 
body and mind fit to be the sanctuary of the 
divine. . . . He who realizes God will be 
afraid of nothing on the earth except failing 
to do His will and of nothing beyond the 
earth except the hiding of His face." 

We remember God at times and all of us 
realize in some measure the presence of God, 
but only at rare times and moments. How 
can we continually remember and realize 
God so that we shall always rejoice in Him 
and that He shall be continually our life and 
health ? 

If it is possible, are there any rules to com- 
pass it? Or can it be accomplished only by 
a great, overmastering love for God? 
Jeremy Taylor believed in rules as well as in 
love, and he gives us ten definite rules for 
accomplishing it in the book that we have 
mentioned. 

Shall we venture to remind ourselves of 
these rules in the briefest way. 

1. His first rule: Let this actual thought 
often return: God is omnipotent, filling 



206 MENTAL MEDICINE 

every place. " God is here." The frequent 
repetition of this thought will help to bring 
to the soul the sense of God's presence. We 
want the spiritual consciousness saturated 
with the divine reality. 

2. Second rule: Solemnly worship God, 
place thyself in God's presence, behold Him 
with the eye of faith, let thy desires actually 
fix on Him. It is not only, " Thou God, 
seest me," but also " O God ! I see Thee ! " 

3. Third rule : Let everything you see rep- 
resent to you God's presence. ... In the 
face of the sun you may see God's beauty; 
in the fire you may feel His heart warming; 
in the water, His gentleness to refresh you; 
it is the dew of heaven that makes your field 
give you bread and ministers drink to your 
necessities. This is antique imagery, but 
singularly suggestive. It is the spirit of the 
higher pantheism to which Saint Francis of 
Assisi gives utterance in his childlike yet 
majestic "Hymn of the Creatures." 

4. Fourth rule: Make frequent short dis- 
coursing^ between God and thy own soul. 
This will make Him present to thy spirit and 
to thy necessity. This was long since called 
by a spiritual person " A building to God a 
chapel in our breast." For thus in the midst 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 207 

of your work, you may retire into your 
chapel — your heart — and converse with God. 

5. Fifth rule : " Express thyself con- 
stantly, sensible of God by a spirit of love 
and reverence toward Him." God is present 
by His power, He calls for reverence; He is 
present to Thee in Thy needs and relieves 
them; He deserves Thy love. 

6. Sixth rule : " Remember God is in us, 
we are in Him. ,, We are in His actual pres- 
ence by His indwelling within us, and by 
our partaking of His divine nature. Let this 
thought make Him real to us. It is the 
spirit of Novalis, " Whoso toucheth my flesh, 
toucheth God." 

7. Seventh rule : " God is in thy brother. 
Refresh Him when he needs it. ,, Thou giv- 
est to thy brother, thou givest to God, for He 
is thy brother. This is the ancient word of 
Christ and this the modern parable of Sir 
Launfal. 

8. Eighth rule : " Everywhere let your 
deportment be as if in a holy place," or on 
holy ground, for God is there. God is in 
this place though I may know it not . . . 
this is a gate of heaven. 

9. Ninth rule : " Remember that God is 
in every creature. Be cruel toward none." 



208 MENTAL MEDICINE 

Be kind toward all, for it is God who is in 
all by His presence. Almost there seems here 
the exquisite sense of sanctity of the Bud- 
dhists, and the closing lesson of the rhyme 
of the Ancient Mariner. 

10. Tenth rule : " Companion thyself 
with God. . . . Converse with Him, run 
to Him in all thy necessities; ask counsel 
of Him in all thy doubtings; weep before 
Him for thy sins; fear Him as a judge, rev- 
erence Him as a lord, obey Him as a father, 
love Him ... as the espoused loves his 
betrothed." 

These are the Ten Rules for the practice 
of the presence of God, and the rules are 
supplemented by a number of excellent 
prayers to be used in furtherance of the prac- 
tice. 

Notice in all these rules that the way of 
realization is not when we minimize self; 
not in the ascetic sense of effacing person- 
ality and nullifying will, but in the sense of 
finding the larger life, by forgetting self 
and remembering God. 

Tolstoi is correct, as Dr. MacDonald re- 
marks, when he said the cause of all our ills 
is that men have lost their sense of God. 
That is why we rush at our brother's throat; 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 209 

that is why we struggle and compete, and 
claw and cheat, and lose our life more and 
more with every futile attempt to save it. 
Yes, and that is the cause of our sorrows, 
our sicknesses and our despair. We have re- 
fused to believe that God is with us and 
that we are spirits as infinite as is He; 
and that because spirit with spirit can meet, 
the very joy of heaven is at our door wait- 
ing to be brought up into our consciousness 
and made the working principle of existence. 

Such great truths — when we meditate upon 
them often, repeat them over and over 
again until we live with them and they be- 
come a part of us — cannot fail to bring a 
more joyous and confident mind and spirit, 
and react most helpfully and hopefully on 
the whole life — spiritually, mentally, even 
physically. 

Such things we must emphasize. 

We need to make it our habit to realize 
the presence of God, of the omnipresence of 
His goodness, His wisdom, His love and His 
power with us. We need to keep constantly 
before us in all our daily life, the remem- 
brance that it is in God that we live and 
move and have our being. We need to speak 
frequently to all the troubles, disturbances 



210 MENTAL MEDICINE 

and worries of life, " In the name of Christ, 
peace, be still ! " 

Then from words we can go to facts. 
For it is actual fact that God is within us; 
we can be one with Him. We can possess 
the divine presence; it possesses us. We can 
come into fuller and fuller realization that 
the transcendent God is also an immanent 
God in the depths of the life. We can learn 
in prayer and communion to withdraw from 
the consciousness of the morbid and pain- 
ful, at least for some quiet hours in the 
midst of the day — withdraw into the con- 
sciousness of the divine and eternal. Just 
as one can forget pain in, a great joy, or for- 
get time and place in an absorbing story, or 
forget all as the eyes close and sleep comes 
— so can we sink into God in restfulness 
and peace, and awake to new strength and 
health. 

Is this mysticism? It is also practicality. 
It is not a life of mere passivity and ac- 
quiescence, but of positiveness and action. 
It means incitement toward strongest person- 
ality. It is letting God work through you 
to the fullest. It is asserting independence 
in spiritual things under the leadership of 
the Spirit. It is standing on one's feet with 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 211 

God and emphasizing the reality and suprem- 
acy of the spiritual in life. It is facing 
all the circumstances of life with the cry, 
" I conquer in Christ. I can do all things 
through Him." It is being grateful for the 
stimulus of hardness and attack. It is meet- 
ing trials, troubles, suffering and sadness — ■ 
and searching their very depths until the 
heart of blessing in them is found. It is 
living in the turmoils and struggles and bat- 
tles of life with the deep hidden serenity of 
God at the heart, like the calm in the deep 
ocean caves though the upper surface be 
storm. It is making the very best of life. 
The conditions of life may be hard, hostile 
and harassing. But what of it? We can 
never reach our ideal conditions. We must 
realize that where we are and in our present 
conditions, life's discipline must be endured 
and conquered and life's divinest lessons 
learned. 

Such things as these we must emphasize. 
God is near us now and here, as if we were 
with Him in Heaven. 

The Almighty is right here — in us — 
abounding, infinite in His wisdom and love 
and power for us. The power of the Al- 
mighty is for us and for our using. Just 



212 MENTAL MEDICINE 

as much as we can use worthily and well, 
not for ecstasy, not for display, but for spir- 
itual service — so much is God eager and 
willing to give us. It is ours if we will 
be filled with all the fullness of God. 

We must emphasize above all, what is the 
vital center of life. Shall we dwell in the 
trivialities of self, of fears and doubts and 
weakness, and frailties and sickness, of 
things that are accidental, temporary, that 
perish with the using — shall we make these 
the all-important things of life? Or shall 
we dwell on the eternal things— of truth, of 
character, of God and His love, and His 
promises, and holiness and health? Once 
it was thought that this earth was the center 
of the universe and all things else revolved 
around it. The universe was geo-centric. 
That was Ptolamaic astronomy. But we have 
learned better since Copernicus, and it is 
seen that the sun is the center and all re- 
volves around it. The universe, as we know 
it, is helio-centric. 

Perchance we have been making our own 
little selves too much the center of our 
thought, care, interest, religion. We have 
lost power and peace. God calls us to let 
our lives be not self-centered. He wants 



INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 213 

our thought, love, interests, hopes, all to 
revolve around the Son of God. In Him is 
holiness and health. 

Do we understand, and are we helping 
others to understand, what it means to live in 
an atmosphere of large inspiration? It 
comes by dwelling in the great affirmations 
of divine truth, the eternal verities of ex- 
istence. And do we realize how such a di- 
vine atmosphere can remake the whole life, 
physical, as well as mental and moral? 

The Master said, eighteen hundred years 
ago, " Have faith in God " ; the Psalmist 
said a thousand years or more before that, 
" Hope thou in God." Implicit trust in God 
— believing love — is the true philosopher's 
stone that transmutes everything that it 
touches into gold, that takes these rough, 
bitter experiences of life and sees them full 
of the golden goodness of God. " Believing 
love ! " It is the fabled maiden that goes 
forth weaving with a magic web. She 
snatches here and there the scattered skeins 
of this tangled universe and weaves them 
together as silken threads, into one glorious, 
harmonious garment of the goodness of God. 

The only thing that makes serious and in- 
telligent men live content and hopeful in the 



214 MENTAL MEDICINE 

midst of the mysterious and oftentimes bit- 
ter and perplexing providences of life, is 
this firm assurance, that behind this world 
and its mysteries there is One whose name 
is love, One who loves us heart to heart, 
One who is manifesting His love to us in a 
thousand ways. He is the clew of the maze; 
He is the center and heart of the world's life 
and purposes; His is the plan and consum- 
mation of that 

". . . one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves/' 



3477 



